Are Peaches Good at the End of the Season?

Encore.

Defined by Merriam-Webster as “a demand for repetition or reappearance made by an audience” (source).

Who doesn’t love a good encore? You get more of what you came to see.

Sometimes you can get good an encore even when you don’t demand it. I thought I was done receiving peaches from Pearson Farm for the season until they emailed and offered an encore. Another week of peaches!

Not only was I offered an encore, you – the blog reader are receiving an encore as well.

Welcome to Our Pearson Peach Series

In case you are just tuning in, welcome to our Person Peach Series. This summer I am receiving 6 (correction 7) boxes of peaches from Pearson Farm near Fort Valley, Georgia. Each box will contain a different variety of Prince peaches. It’s a fantastic way to experience the different flavors, textures, and colors of the peach.

Each post in our series contains a peach variety review, topic (Are Peaches Good at the End of the Season?), and recipe.  The recipes will be small batch recipes, where you will only need 1 peach to make. Also sprinkled in will be a fact for you about Pearson Farm

Pearson Farm Fact

Each week I have been sharing some info on the farm I have been getting the peaches. The final fact I want to share is that the people who work for Pearson Farm are amazing. I have been emailing back and forth with Angela Young from Pearson and she has been a delight. Thank you Angela for your support and sending all the peaches my way.  How about next year I come down and get some peaches in person?

Flame Prince Peach Review

Commence playing the Olympic theme song in your head. The Flame Prince peach was named for the Olympic flame. Dr. Okie, the one who breeds the peaches in the Prince peach series wanted to name his last variety of the season after the Olympics to go along with the Atlanta Summer Olympics of 1996. The first commercial harvest of the peach was scheduled to take place during those games. Unfortunately the crop suffered a complete loss. But the the name still stuck with the variety.

Out of all the peaches that I received this year from Pearson Farm, the Flame Prince was the most flavorful of them all. Talk about saving the best for last! This peach was incredible. Perfect amount of sweetness. Juicy. Just everything you want in a peach. Originally I wasn’t going to get these peaches. Thank goodness for our encores!

Are Peaches Good at the End of the Season?

After hearing my rave review of the Flame Prince peach it should be clear that the answer is yes. Peaches picked at the end of the season can be really good. In fact some of my favorite peaches are the last ones off the tree. These seem to be among the most flavorful.

Every year I try to head over to the west coast of Michigan to Fruit Acres Farm where I will pick their last variety of peaches along with my wife’s favorite apple the Blondee. One of the vendors at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market used to grow a variety called Sweet Sue that had the most wonderful maple-like flavor (unfortunately a bad winter wiped out their trees).

Here comes the but. This I did not find to be true for peaches at the grocery store. In fact I find them to be pretty bad at the end of the season. Most likely you are getting peaches that have spent way too much time in cold storage which leaves you with mealy, disgusting fruit.

I rarely ever buy peaches from the grocery store past July. Peaches are in season locally anyway during that period, so I don’t have to experience the very sad end that the California peaches have at the grocery store.

This Week’s Recipe – Peach Compound Butter

I have learned a lot of tricks from Alton Brown over the years. Follow my blog for any length of time and you will hear me bring up one or two. Here is one right now – make compound butters for quick flavor enhancements.

What is a compound butter? It is simply adding other ingredients to butter. You take room temperature butter and give it a spin in your food processor. Then you add whatever kinds of flavors you want. You can go sweet or savory. Roasted garlic and/or herbs are always a good option. Then when it comes time to serve dinner you can serve some steamed green beans with your compound butter and have an easy to make and tasty side dish ready.

For this compound butter I am using a Flame Prince peach. Add some brown sugar and you have the perfect piece of toast waiting to happen.

For storing the butter, I always keep in wrapped up in some wax paper and placed in the freezer. You can cut off how ever much you need and allow it to come to room temperature before spreading.