Allure of the peach

There are probably few fruits as attractive and alluring as peaches. With its velvety fuzzy skin, rosy white to sunset tan flesh, round contours, juicy but firm texture, sweet taste with just the right splash of tang and most importantly its seductive fragrance, the peach deserves the title of the queen of fruits. It is even said that “the peach should have been the fruit that led Adam and Eve astray.” Taste, smell, texture, color, visual appeal... Peach has been a muse for artists with its hard-to-resist appeal, many artists could not remain indifferent to peach, which is a source of inspiration in every branch of art. Especially literature and painting cannot be imagined without peaches.

French Connection

Peaches have been particularly inspirational to artists in France. In French, peachy skin means heathy, glowy, soft and pink skin, and the term “avoir le pêche” means being full of energy, feeling great and happy. French Impressionist painter Pierre-August Renoir (1841-1919) used to advise his students to first try to paint a perfect peach, claiming that a painter who could not paint a peach would never be successful in “nude” paintings of women. Looking at the plump, round, pink, misty Renoir women, one really smells fresh peaches. French author Émile Zola (1840-1902), on the other hand, made a connection between peaches and the girls of the region where they grow. According to Zola, girls from the North have almost a translucent complexion, pale pink and white like Montreuil peaches, while girls from the South are deep yellow to suntan copper-brown, just like the Roussanne peaches of Monein in the southeast corner of France.

Montreuil peaches were grown in a totally unique way, with their branches spread and attached to a wall, a technique developed by the legendary gardener of King Louis XIV La Quinitinie, creator of the gardens of the Palace of Versailles of King Louis XIV. Pere Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), the author of The Three Musketeers, mentions peaches in his “The Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine” published after his death in 1873, a thorough encyclopedic gourmet guide. In the article on peaches, Dumas says that the best peaches are grown in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil, followed by Dauphiné, Angoumois and Touraine peaches. Funnily, the peaches of Montreuil have a history of an actual musketeer. Courageous fierce fighter Girardot, severely wounded many times in sword duels was eventually retired to Malassis, between Montreuil and Bagnolet, and devoted himself to growing fruit trees. With the help of the advice of the famed royal gardener, he began to grow exceptional peaches. Once, he put a dozen of the choicest peaches he had grown in his garden in a basket and sent them to the gardener, writing “For the King's Dessert." After a while, the gardener and the king came to visit the gardens. The story ends with the king giving the musketeer a pension for life and the Girardot sending the king a basket of peaches in return every year for the rest of his life.

In the south, copper-colored Roussanne peaches are quite similar to our famed Bursa peaches, with its Provence is also a great producer of peaches, these days the lovely Wednesday market of St. Remy de Provence boosts with local peaches from nearby producers, fully ripe and alluringly fragrant. There is intriguing evidence to be mentioned here. French traveler Guillaume Antoine Olivier, who visited the Ottoman lands around Bursa and Mudanya in the 1790s, wrote the following. “There is also a fruit of the apple genus that has a huge core, an oval shape and an extraordinary flavor. We bought some seedlings of this strange apple and planted them in the garden of the French Palace in Istanbul. In the future, we will take it to France and try to grow it there.” Who knows, maybe the Bursa peach seedlings planted in the garden of the embassy took root and made their mark on the tables in France a century later.

Muse of chefs

In the culinary world, the delicately fragrant peach has influenced chefs and has been the muse of immortal flavors created for famous artists. Pechê Melba, or “Melba-style Peach,” is one of the most famous classic desserts of French cuisine. Here, both the fruit and the crystal-voiced Australian soprano were the muse for the legendary French chef Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), the father of French cuisine. The story of the famed dessert goes as such: Soprano Nellie Melba was to dine at the Savoy Hotel in London in the 1890s where Escoffier was the chef in charge. Melba's role as Elsa in Lohengrin in 1892 inspired Escoffier's immortal dessert, he served poached peaches on vanilla ice cream nestled on a crystal swan statue made of ice, all encased in a sugar-spun cage. Escoffier cuts the recipe short in his book: “Poach the peaches in vanilla syrup. Serve over creamy vanilla ice cream with a little raspberry puree.” It's not that simple, of course, but it's not difficult either.

Plump plum

In Türkiye, Bursa was considered the capital of peaches, huge, with deep tawny yellow firm flesh, not clingy to the stone. Apparently, peach was first domesticated in China, and spread westwards via Persia, hence the name Prunus persica in Latin, meaning the Persian plum. Ancient Romans named it Malum persicum, that is Persian apple, “malum” a word also used as a generic name referring to fruit, not necessarily to apple per se. Interestingly the Turkish word for peach is “Şeftali,” also coming from the Persian language meaning the plump plum, şeft: plump, and alu: plum. At that point, nectarines, newly introduced to Türkiye, are not a crossbreed of peaches and plums as one might think, but a variant of peaches without the fuzz.

Peaches, native to China, traveled great distances and made home many lands around the globe where temperate climate prevails. Wherever they went, they haunted people with their charm, taste, appearance and captivating smell and aroma, the perfect package. Peaches were introduced into the Americas in the 16th century by the Spanish, initially reaching Latin America by 1580. Despite Thomas Jefferson having peach trees at Monticello, influenced by French gardening, American farmers did not begin commercial peach cultivation until the 19th century. Eventually, peaches became a beloved fruit in states from Maryland to Georgia and from South Carolina to Virginia. Today, in America, the month of August is declared as the National Peach Month. The tradition dates back to 1982, when President Ronald Regan declared August as the official peach month, supposedly due to its health and nutritional values, but apparently for promoting the fruit for commercial reasons. Within the month, Aug. 22 is National Eat A Peach Day and Aug. 24 is National Peach Pie Day, both aimed to increase consumption enjoying and celebrating the luscious fruit.

Chinese poets referred to peaches as a symbol of immortality. Peaches have gained immortality influencing chefs and artists alike. So, it is just the right time to celebrate the peach and enjoy its irresistible allure.