The Fruits Of Summer (Part 3)

A long legacy

According to The Peach Sampler, a cookbook compiled by Eliza Mears Horton, peaches originally came from China: the fruit is referred to in the writing of Confucius in the fifth century. Peaches then traveled, via caravan routes, to Persia, Greece and Rome. In the United States, peaches first appeared only years after the pilgrims landed in 1620.

Interestingly, peaches, plums and nectarines are members of the rose family. Nectarines, which many consider a form of the peach, is actually a very distinct fruit and likely predates the peach. Nectarines take their name from the drink of the Olympic gods: “nectar.” Plums come in two types: Japanese and European. Japanese plums - tarter, juicier and larger than European plums - are the most abundantly produced varieties in the United States. They were first introduced to the United States in the late 1880s when legendary plant breeder Luther Burbank imported the parent stock from the Satsuma province of Japan. They come in a variety of colors - red, purple, black, green and yellow. European plums were introduced in the United States by the Pilgrims: they tend to blue or purple, more oval-shaped, smaller and sweeter than the Japanese varieties.

Today, there are more than 1.7 billion pounds of plums, peaches and nectarines packed each spring and summer in the United States, with more than 75 percent grown in California.

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