Peach Juice

It's peak peach season now. Our local produce market has sweet, juicy varieties from Arkansas and Georgia. They are delightful. Almost as good as the peaches of my childhood. This area was once known as the Peach Capitol of Kansas. There were several large orchards nearby, and our summers of fireflies, tag, swimming, and picnics were not complete without several visits to the farms to pick peaches. As the years passed, the trees began to die out. It was discovered that salt brine from oil wells had seeped into the groundwater, which destroyed acres and acres of our beloved peach trees. 

It's not easy to find fruit that can compare to the juicy, sweet deliciousness of those long-ago peaches. Each time I manage to find some that even come close to that incomparable  flavor, my childhood memories surface and I am taken back to those hot summer days. The family would pile into the car for the short ride to the orchard, where we would clamber onto a flat-bed trailer which would haul us into the sunny lanes dappled with shade from the fruit-laden trees. We probably ate almost as many peaches as we picked! Dad always said the orchard should just weigh the customers both before and after the picking and then charge by the pound!

When we returned home with sticky arms and fingers and a couple of bushels of golden - orange peaches, the work began. Mom wasn't a canner. She froze the peaches. We would work together in the kitchen, several of us, peeling and slicing the mountains of fruit. The peaches would be tossed with a bit of Fruit Fresh and some sugar, and then sealed into family-sized bags and gently placed into the freezer. And the best part? Ah, the best part was that on blustery, cold, winter evenings, Mom would thaw some of those peaches for dessert. Sometimes she would make peach pie or cobbler, but often it was a simple bowl of chilled peaches swimming in their sweet juices. One taste - and it was summer again. 

I have been taking full advantage of the availability of the fresh peaches these past couple of weeks. I have made peach pie, peach crisp, peach cobbler... and a simple dish of sliced, golden, peaches swimming in their sweet juices. Perhaps I should also fill the freezer. Winter is just around the corner.