This weekly column, “Adventures in Good Eating,” by Back Door Café chef/owner Fran Ginn appears each Thursday in the Marion County Informer.

……I relish the opportunity of finding something new and different to eat wherever I go. I love to explore why people eat what they do and how food has shaped their lives. Adventures in Good Eating is my way of sharing the pleasure of culinary discovery and also the anticipation of tables and tastes yet to be found.

Do you have a moment in your life which is preserved in your memory like an insect in amber?  Can you remember everything about that moment…..what you were feeling, what the surroundings looked like, even what you were wearing?  Does it still seem fresh, more like yesterday that forty years ago?

I can recall in detail where I was and the taste of the most delicious peach I ever ate. I was thirteen years old, on a “Chevy Chase Family Vacation”-type trip with my family.  The date was June 10, 1967, the last day of the Arab-Israeli Six Day War.  We were in Johnson City, TX, on a  road leading to the LBJ Ranch.  There was a make-shift wooden fruit stand on the side of the road.  The fruit stand had an old cigar box (Roi-tan, I think) which served as a cash box.  There was a sign which gave the price of the peaches  ( .50 per basket) and instructed buyers to pay on the honor system. We passed by the fruit stand, but  my mother, who loved peaches, was insistent that we turn around and go back to the stand.  My daddy, whose temper was beginning to fray after 10 days on the road, reluctantly turned the car around in the middle of the road and drove back.  Mama and I got out.  My daddy and brothers were less than not interested in peaches.  The day was hot, with a light breeze,  the fields behind the fruit stand were full of wildflowers and the air was heavy with the scent of fresh peaches.  The sign offered one peach per customer as a free sample.  Mama carefully evaluated at least a dozen individual peaches before choosing one.  The peaches were small, not much larger than a plum.  The exterior was a deep pinky orange color, shading to almost burgundy toward the bottom of the fruit.  She rubbed off the velvet fuzz from the peach and took a bite.  My mother’s eyes flew open wide.  She had an expression of absolute bliss on her face.   When she handed the peach to me to taste, I understood.  The flesh of the peach had a consistency more reminiscent of a firm custard than a fruit.  The juice was wonderfully sweet and tasted of flowers.  Mama looked at me as she wiped the juice from her face and said, “This is what the peaches in heaven will taste like”.   We got my daddy’s pocket knife and cut open another peach.  The flesh was ivory,  shading to a deep magenta at the seed.  Neither Mama or I had ever seen a white peach before.  We were amazed by this new fruit – tiny, delectable and so sweet.  We bought 3 baskets.  To the end of her life, Mama always talked about those LBJ peaches.  We never found another peach quite so delicious. 

In the present day, thanks to the immediacy and plethora of information on the Internet, I found that white peaches have a lower acidity level than their orange colored cousins.  They are more delicate and don’t travel as well.  I also learned that the white peach is the more favored variety in the Far East, with the orange fleshed more acidic peach more popular in Europe.  The Chinese consider the peach a symbol of longevity.  Mention of the fruit has been documented in Chinese writings as early as the 10^th century BC.

Isn’t it wonderful what our brains retain?  As I have eaten peach after peach this summer – and it has been a good year for peaches – I’ve traveled back to that day in Texas in 1967 many times.  Memory does tend to intensify parts of an experience, but I truly believe that first peach that day was the best I had ever or would ever taste.  It really was heavenly.