Peaches

Cortona:–The new season Valdichiana peaches, just  starting to come in, are full of the most incomparable flavor. How to describe it? Words fail. I could say wine, I could say honey, I could say blossoming flowers, but nothing quite does justice to the taste of a ripe peach.

I have to eat my fill and then some because all too soon I must go back to a country and a region that does not understand that the words “peach” and “ripe,” put together have a meaning that goes way beyond either one of those words on its own.

I think of MFK Fisher writing about the fruits of Provence markets that are so ripe you cannot even keep them overnight without their rotting. So off you go to the market again next morning to add to the bowl. But what she forgot to say is that just before the fruit turns to rot, it floods the house with fragrance. The peaches are past eating now, but their ephemeral aroma invades the space around them to constant delight. Each person who crosses the threshold this Sunday morning does so with a sniff and a grunt of pleasure.