For all of us residing between ten degrees North and Alaska, August marks the opening of the floodgates for farmers large and small.1 Festoons of tomatoes, basil, eggplant, peppers, peaches, and plums are being picked every day from immense fields and orchards to tiny little rooftop gardens in bustling metropolises. For those of us who didn’t go a little overboard during the Spring planting season, now is the time for us to reap the harvest that all these hard working farmers and gardeners have delivered to the markets.
Sifting through the sheer quantity and diversity of produce available at supermarkets, farmer’s markets, grocers, and roadside stands can be a daunting task. We should treat every Autumn as a learning experience. Each passing year is a chance to branch out, to discover unique varieties of fruits and vegetables, find farms bursting at the seams with succulent tomatoes, and the neighborhood grocery stores that carry the spiciest peppers, the ripest eggplant, the sweetest watermelon.
As Americans, we have a propensity to stay comfortably in the realm of the familiar, the known. It is for this reason that corporations with their consistency and uniformity are so popular. This is why supermarkets are laden with pile after pile of identical bunches of lettuce, and pristine, waxy, flavorless green orbs they have the nerve to call apples. However, nature is by no means uniform. However, without a year long swathing of chemicals and the dangerous waters of genetic modification,2 with organic, locally grown fruit you will be lucky to find two pieces off the same tree that have a similar shape, or the same shade of green. Though it is contrary to our nature, the more unique, the more imperfect the fruit or vegetable, the more likely it is to be something special!
The majority of farms, even the tiny ones, go through extensive sorting processes to weed out these ugly ducklings. Generally, the “Number Ones” that make it to the store, comprise a fraction of the actual harvest. Smaller farms, such as the Philo Apple Farm in Mendocino County, California, will sell boxes of these defective “Number Twos” to local customers. This is the bulbous fruit, bruised by the thumb of an overzealous picker, that is too small, too squat, too ripe, or too green. These are often the tastiest apples, but do not adhere to the visual standard that dominates the produce market today.
The Fuji, far and away today’s most popular variety of apple, is indisputably excellent. However, after spending a year working a farm with no less than eighty varieties of apples, I have no less than twenty varieties I prefer to the Fuji. Why then, you might ask, are these other varieties not more prolific? Why don’t you see Ashmead’s Kernel, King David, Wickson (bred by the notable pomologist Albert Etters3), Paladay Bouquet, and Cox Orange Pippin at Whole Foods all that often?
There are two reasons. First, the Fuji apple has an incredibly long shelf life—crops coming from the southern hemisphere in January can stay crisp for up to a month and a half—Paladay Bouquet, on the other hand, has about a twelve hour window to be picked, and maybe three days before it becomes a mushy mess. Second, Fuji apples are an extremely consistent variety, bearing a resemblance to each other that Alphas and Omegas have amongst themselves in Aldous Huxsley’s Brave New World.4 Cox Orange Pippins, on the other hand, are pockmarked, russetted, frankly bizarre looking specimens of fruit. However, the pungency, the subtlety of its acids, and sugars, make Fuji apples taste bland and tasteless by comparison.
This phenomenon does not just apply to apples—heirloom varieties of tomatoes, squash, peppers, and eggplant all are well worth trying. In fact, some of them are so wildly different that they seem as if they are another species, a bizarre cousin of the fruit or vegetable they are straying from. And how can you find these distinctive treasures? Only by seeking small farms, by eating locally,5 talking to the farmers and gardeners and asking about their favorites. This is the only time of year that you can taste the incredible varieties of produce that can only be eaten fresh. Buy sweet corn that has been picked that morning. As the old Farmer’s Proverb goes: “Sweet corn shouldn’t be eaten within a matter of hours, but a matter of minutes.”
An entire sumptuous underbelly of the produce industry lurks under the shadow of mechanized agriculture. Steer clear of fruit loaded with pesticides and the genetically modified organisms rampant in today’s supermarkets. Dare to try ugly fruit and vegetables, seek out the obscure, the unknown, and soon you will find yourself admiring the beauty of their anomalies, their imperfections, and their undeniable superiority to the conventional fruits and vegetables you usually search for.
