David Mas Masumoto - The Perfect Peach: Recipes and Stories from the Masumoto Family Farm

Copyright 2013 by Marcy Masumoto, Nikiko Masumoto, and David Mas Masumoto
Photographs copyright 2013 by Staci Valentine
Foreword copyright 2013 by Rick Bayless

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by
Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the
Crown Publishing Group, a division
of Random House, Inc., New York.
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www.tenspeed.com

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of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-60774-328-6
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-60774-327-9

Food styling by Karen Shinto
Food stylist assisting by Vicky Woollard
Photography team: Douglas Axtell, Ethan Sharkey, Amber McKee
Prop styling by Amy Paliwoda

v3.1

L IKE THE MASUMOTOS , all of us have our peaches, dont we? At least those of us who have discovered a passion for something. We can point to the experience of that one special thingthat taste or trip, class or deal, project or playafter which life was different, we were different. A time when something was awakened within us that both fed us and challenged us, that so captivated us that we wanted to make it forever part of our lives and, feeding off our zeal, part of the lives of those around us.

I have no idea whether its the nature of peaches themselves or mere coincidence, but my peaches moment came with peaches. Like most of us who came of age in the sixties, I was raised in a family whose grandparents still had tenacious, though eroding, roots in agricultural soil. Not farms for my Oklahoma City family, but big victory gardens of okra, tomatoes, and Kentucky Wonder green beans, foraging expeditions for sand plums, endless hours of cracking pecans from the tree at the back of the yard, dragging home can-able bounty from farm stands, and our yearly expedition to the Pauls Valley to pick peaches.

Peaches taught me some transformative lessons, certainly ones that are less complex than those they have taught to the Masumoto clan. They were an occasion for my sassy, red-headed, hourglass-figured Grandmother Potter to corral as many grandchildren as she could into her sleek-finned 62 Cadillac for the two-hour trip to the peach orchard. Oklahoma sun is blistering in July, much as it is in Californias Central Valley, and the parched earth around the peach trees was always dry and cracked wide into deep fissures. Yet at eight or ten or fourteen years old, climbing like monkeys into the trees on rickety homemade ladders to collect enough of the aromatic fruit to fill seven or eight bushels was a thrilling adventure. Noisy adventure as we challenged each other to dangerous heights and unrealistic peach-picking speed. Torturous adventure by the end of several stiflingly hot hours wrestling with peach fuzz, mosquitoes, and pointy leaves.

Anyone whos bitten into a fully ripe, just-picked peachhot from the summers sun and ripe enough to be what the Masumotos call a gusherknows that the feeling is completely, thoroughly arresting. Flavor thats exhilarating, even titillating; texture thats voluptuous and sloppy. At eight years old, eating peach after peach in the orchard was about nothing more than rampant consumption of forbidden sweets. At fourteen, for me, each peach stirred my newly awakening appreciation for the full range of sensual pleasures with which life abounds.

Sweaty and sticky and itchy from the fruits fuzz, we grandchildren dragged the bushels to Grandmas car and fit them into her hot tubsize trunk, knowing full well that some would have to share the backseat with us. The ride back had each of us constantly jockeying to get close to the vents of the cars piddling air conditioner. The ride was worn-out quiet, but for me, every minute of it was pure pleasure. Two hours enveloped richly in the intoxicating aroma of ripe peaches. It was an aroma that would saturate every breath of the next several days. It was those sun-heated mouthfuls of peach that haunted my memories, that finally led me back to the kitchen as my lifes work.

For days, we ate and breathed peaches. We peeled them to fit like jewels into jars, covered them with hot sugar syrup and slid them onto basement shelves to unearth for winter peach cobblers. We pickled and jarred them to serve with baked chicken. And we learned that natures perfection embraces a wider swath than what they teach in most chefs schools. Not every peach we brought into the kitchen was a stunner, right for cobbler or pickling. Blemished from hail or sunburn or our hard handling, these peaches were perfect for chunky jam or glowing-bright jam or velvety peach butter. All of which became my specialties.

I loved peeling peaches until the pads on my fingers puckered and shriveled from all the juiciness. I loved the feel of sweet perfumey steam puffing up from saucepans set on the electric coils of Grandmas modern new range. I loved taking complete charge of one taste our extended family would nourish itself with over the next year. At least at the beginning I did.

As the days wore on and my enthusiasm waned, I learned the lesson that accompanies practically anything having to do with food, from growing it to crafting it. Its wearying, back-breaking, feet-punishing work that requires digging to your very core for every bit of strength and spirit. Quick and easy, the food preparation mantra of the last decade or so, seems all smoke and mirrors when youre facing honest-to-goodness food preservation or cooking for more than one or two. Yet the lessons of dedication, stamina, and steady eyes-on-the-prize are ones I summon daily. Peaches taught them to me.

And peaches taught me the virtue of an honest dedication to kitchen craft. As our family gathered around Sunday tables for months after summers memory had faded, I knew the peaches wed labored over had drawn them there, promising pleasure and that intangible experience of familial solidarity.

A peacha juicy ripe onecan seduce anyone with its ethereal flavor and sensual texture. But thats just the beginning. That peach has so much more it wants to share, if well just listen.

Rick Bayless

T HE ART OF EATING THE PERFECT PEACH: First raise to the mouth and the aroma enchants, anticipation is stirred. Insert in mouth and bite. Juices splash and squirt and you involuntarily lean over as the syrup drips down your cheeks and dangles on your chin. Flavors explode and the nectar dances across the taste buds. You slowly swallow and the aftertaste lingers and stays. Smack your lips and suck slightly on your tongue and a different wave of flavor delights. Memory is created. You lick your lips and pause before another bite, savoring the momentslowly.