going to market

During the summer, fruit and vegetable stands litter our landscape. I can drive from here to the mall in Douglasville and I pass two established fruit stands, one flea market where you can get fruit and at least two areas where you're likely to see the tailgaters - people on the roadside with a folding tent or umbrella and a folding chair, selling anything from watermelon to pineapple.
Unfortunately, in recent years (I'm not sure how recent, but that's another story), this has become a sort of jaded exercise. It's because few if any of these people are growers. You don't see a long sweeping vista of farmland behind them. More often than not, they are simply mom and pop shippers. They have driven down to Florida or South Georgia, or over to South Carolina, or out to Alabama. Because of where I live, this is what amounts to fresh produce.
And when you consider that Kroger imports from California, and Publix goes to Ecuador, I have to realize -- it IS fresh produce. Baby needs to accept a fact of life. Baby doesn't live in the country anymore.
So it's a nice thing to visit a farmer's market. It's an even nicer thing to have a conversation with the people who are selling wares there. Because you have the same situation there as you do along the side of the road. Some of the vendors at the farmer's market are shippers. They've loaded a wood sided truck with boxes and boxes of "local" produce, and they've set up shop to sell it to you. But there are also those who've walked out their backdoor to fields of tomatoes, rows of squash, and planting boxes of organic eggplant. And when you speak to them, you learn their names and who they are and what they do. And before too long, you have an accurate picture of what came from where. So while I pay $3.50/lb for my farmer's market tomatoes, I come home with a sack of Cherokee purples and zebra stripes from a Georgia backyard, and they taste wonderful compared to the plastic mealy substitutes for nutrition I get from the store. And because I ask the shippers, I even know where they got their peaches from. And if I'm not convinced that his peaches are worth $2/lb, which is at least .30 more than I can find in the store, he slices off a piece of it for me to taste.
"Ma'am, would you like to try this peach?"
"Yes sir, where did you get these?"
"We went out to South Carolina for these. These are clearstone peaches."
My smile brightens. "I know what that is, I might need to get some of these."
A clearstone peach is a rare commodity in a grocery store. Large commercial shippers despise them. See, when you pick a peach, it stops ripening. The only fate a peach can suffer after it comes off the branch is Rot City. You can't buy a hard-as-a-rock peach in the store, bring it home and set it on the counter, hoping it will ripen. It won't. It will only soften as it's disintegrating into mush. I'm sorry if this upsets you, but it's true.
Clearstone peaches come into this world on the soft side. They aren't a canning peach, the kind growers love because they are firm and hardy. They are table peaches. They belong in smaller, family orchards. They are the kind you pick as they ripen. They are the kind you pick at the height of summer and enjoy in the moment. They are the high note in summer's song.
"Now ma'am, there's nothing wrong with a Georgia peach," the old man confided in me. He looked to be in his late 60's or early 70's. I had been to his stand before and bought cucumbers from his daughter. She was friendly, but it had only taken a few questions from me before I understood that she didn't know the land, and didn't know her produce. She was there to smile and take money. I had walked away a little disappointed, but I'm glad I returned the following week to speak to this man. I was now staring -- smiling -- at the brains of the outfit. And I think he was worried that I'd be offended that he wasn't selling Georgia peaches.
I wasn't. "I just want you to know, there's nothing wrong with a Georgia peach, but they aren't table peaches."
"I lived a lot of years in South Carolina, and I'm real familiar with table peaches," I said to him. "Could we fill up a bag?"
"Ma'am, I have the diabetes, but when these come in, I have to have at least one a day."
"I totally understand." And I did. And he talked me into 5lbs of fresh, delicate South Carolina table peaches. And I'm so glad he did. Because that was two weeks ago, and for whatever reason I haven't been able to get back there to the stand. And that's a shame, because while they're probably still coming in, I missed getting anymore at their peak. The next time I go, the peaches will probably be south Georgia peaches. Or they will be Alabama Chilton peaches. And they will be good. But they won't sing in my mouth the way those did. It was a fleeting glimpse of the best of summer.

--Laura