Most of the donut peaches I’ve tasted have been both mealy and overpriced. I don’t want to pay more for lousy produce, just because it happens to be toroidal. But those were not these donut peaches. These donut peaches were delicious. The flesh was firm, slick, and juicy, almost more like a plumcot than a Late Alberta peach. If they lacked the wonderful fuzziness of a tree-fresh peach, they were easier to eat. The toroidal shape meant that I could work my way around the pit by bite-sized pieces. No noseful of peach fuzz, no juice on the chin. Wise, these old Chinese cultivators. There’s something to that shape.

So, I must ask myself, if a donut peach can be that good, and offer the convenience that only a toroidal fruit can, should I embrace it? Well, ok. Going further, should I elevate the donut peach above the conventionally-shaped peach? No, I can’t. As much as I turned out to like the donut peaches I received (from Red Jacket Orchards, through the Added Value Farms CSA), I prefer peach-shaped peaches. I want the noseful of fuzz. I want the juice dripping down my chin. I want the intensely pleasurable, messy experience that only a bolus-peach can provide, that surfeit of unstoppable sweetness that, to me, says summer like nothing else.

Them’s my peaches and I’m sticking to ‘em.

Seriously, though, is there an urban CSA with a shorter supply chain anywhere? Red Hook FTW.

The Burgers of Shalom sound delicious. I’ll have to add those into next week’s menu.