June 23, 2020 • 49 mins
These tasty tree fruits have a simple genome and a complicated history. Anney and Lauren explore the origins, science, and marketing behind peaches.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about peaches, yes, because I have been seeing them
pop up all over It is peach season as we speak, Yes,
and we are in the peach state, as Georgia is
very proud to brand itself. Um, it is everywhere. It
(00:32):
is in all of our road names. We have a
peach tree like drop instead of a New Year's ball drop.
Peep peach drop instead of a ball drop. Right, yeah, exactly.
The Peach Tree road Race, which is the largest tin
k in the world. It's on fourth of July, although
this year, because of pandemic, it has been postponed to
(00:53):
Thanksgiving times. Oh okay, all right, that sounds like a
much nicer time of year to write. Exactly. Yes, So
I run this every year and it is miserable. It's miserable.
I got heat poisoning, oh my gosh. Yeah. And I
(01:15):
think last year the mayor. The mayor comes and speaks
before it starts, and I believe she literally said don't
run it, which she met like, walk it, don't overheat.
But I was like, is this the race? Um, and
it's fun because my parents used to run it, so
I have all their old shirts. Uh, the shirt is
(01:36):
the trophy in this case. Huh yeah. Yeah. And and
and peach peach emblems on all of those items that
we've got a peach on our license plate. Yeah, on
our licenses. Um yeah, pretty much any Georgia touristy type thing,
you're gonna see some peaches. And I was thinking about
(01:57):
this and a terrible slash, very fun time at you know,
when I was young, memory game, I used to drink
fuzzy navels as my drink that I would order at bars,
and not just one but um, well, you know, hey, hey,
we all we find my my drink of choice was
(02:20):
was the mud slide for a number of years, so
I yeah, you know, we learn, you know, yes, and
I think those are fine drinks, but I would never ever,
at my current state, order more than one. Yeah. I sugar,
I have learned, does not treat me well, um as
(02:43):
a combination in combination with alcohol, So yes, and a
fuzzy navel if you don't know, is essentially orange juice
and peach snops and something else. But essentially that's it.
It's a very sweet fruit drink. And that reminds me.
I was thinking about all of the instances Peaches show
up in her pop culture. And here's your Signfeld reference
(03:05):
for the episode, Um, Peach snops Elaine when she has secrets.
If you want her to div hold, you just have
to get her drunk on Peach snops. Okay. And then
of course there's James and the Giant Peach. There's Princess Peach.
Um Kung Fu Panda has a lot of stuff about Peaches.
(03:27):
Makes more sense to me now that I've done this research. Elf.
The children's book they were going to write an ELF
was about Peaches. Um. Right, the name of my co
hosta front stuff mom never told you her dog his
name Peaches Gertrude mcpusin. We have a very adversary relationship.
(03:49):
Oh yeah, I think I think we've made friends. Okay,
it Peaches is coming around. Yeah. She she gave me
what Samantha likes to say was over excited bloody lip.
But she gave me a bloody lip in either case.
So um, well, I'm I'm glad if it was out
(04:10):
of excitement and not active malice. Malice, Yeah, oh, I
I think so. But you know. Um. And speaking of
malice there, Peaches was the name of the woman who
ran Woodrof dining Hall at Georgia Tech and I that
was on the west side of campus, and that's where
I spent my freshman and sophomore year. Um. So I
(04:34):
was at Wodrop dining Hall all the time. And she
was infamous. She was so infamous she had a Facebook
page dedicated to her and to like I think it
was called Peaches yelled at me, Um, she she didn't
stand for any of our college student nonsense. Yeah, no,
(04:54):
you gotta be firm. Oh gosh, she was. She yelled
at me. I have the distinct slash not distinct at all,
honor of I was trying to because I'm an adult
and I pretty much just ate cereal. In college, I
had a plastic cup with milk and knowing me cinnamon
(05:18):
toast crunch um, and I was trying to take it
out of the dining hall up to my my room,
and she stopped me and yelled at me and made
me pour it out in front of everyone down a
dream because because it wasn't like a to go cup
like it was like one of the in cafeteria only Okay, yeah,
(05:39):
I you know, it was an honor in some ways.
So if anyone has that experience or no speeches who
I'm talking about, please write it and I would love
love to hear story. Yes, yes, um uh. There's also,
of course the presidents of the United States of America
(05:59):
song peaches, millions of peaches. Peaches for me. Um, there's
a for for anyone else who is way, way, way
too into the magician's television show. There's peaches and plums. Um,
it's Annie. You're giving me a blank. Look, I don't
worry about it. If anyone who wants to talk about
magicians let me let me know. I'm into it. Um, yes,
(06:21):
yes I. Netflix has recently recommended it to me, and
I immediately thought of you. I'm pretty sure, given that
you're a big supernatural fan, that it would be absolutely
up your alley. Um. But but yeah, it's when when
you get to it, let me know. Peaches and plums.
Peaches and plums. Anyway, I like the inflection. It makes
(06:43):
me believe that it's some kind of like sad curses
the thing. But I guess I'll have to watch it
too far out. I guess you will, all right, all right, Um,
August is National peach month, which, as we record, is
coming up. It is. Um. I you know, I don't
(07:04):
really get peaches that often, but my friends I love them.
Oh my gosh, I love them. So this is a
very exciting time. Oh yeah, yeah, I am, you know,
due to the whole thing where um uh quarantine has
made it so that time is meaningless now. Um. When
the first Georgia peaches started, and Pierson Farms is one
(07:26):
particularly well known and loved peach farm here in the
state of Georgia, when their peaches started coming out in May,
I was like, it cannot It's like I was like,
it's like March, like when like how can there be? Oh?
Oh it's May. It's definitely May is the month that
it is. Um. Oh yeah, no, I love a peach.
I just um just over the weekend, Uh, my friend
(07:49):
had a birthday and we um we wound up um
grilling over grilling, as it turned out, some peaches for
for dessert. But I we we made the best of it.
We uh. They weren't like charcoal bricket over grilled. They
were they were merely um. We we wound up squeezing
the edible portion of the fruit out of the husk
(08:14):
that had developed around them. Um. I wound up just
just mixing. I had gotten some some marscapone to to
top these these grilled peaches with, and wound up just
mixing the flesh of the fruit into peaches and plums
um into the marscapone and using that to top some
short bread cookies with. It was it's a mint in there. Uh,
(08:36):
it's it's I still have some of that tub in
my fridge, And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like,
why am I not just eating that straight out of
the tub right at this very moment. That sounds delicious?
And I might do the reverse throwing the rocket the
window at your house later. Oh yeah, I get some
kind of system. Oh gosh, we do That would be great, Oh,
(09:00):
it would be It sounds so good. I love a
chard peach. I like, I actually like peach with basil
our basil um as people like to correct me. But yeah,
and I really love peaches with cinnamon. And that brings
me to a fact I want to put in here
that it is useless, but I'm going to share it.
I just learned a new fan fiction term which is
(09:22):
really impressive because I love fan fiction. Um, and it's
related to our recent classic episode on cinnamon Okay, So
cinnamon roll which means, in the world of fan fiction,
a sweet, kind, good character, too good for this world,
usually a fictional character that suffers, which is precisely my
fanfic jam. That is exactly what I like. So have
(09:45):
you never heard this term? That's girl? I'm glad. I'm
glad that you you've you've learned a new, um new
vocabulary for that. Yeah, and I think it's from an
Onion article headline originally where it was like cinnamon rolls
too good for this world or something. Yeah, but I've
been seeing it. But because of the world of fan fiction,
a lot of those terms means something that is very sexual.
(10:07):
I was appointing looking at oh okay, but I finally
I finally had to do it and it was so sweet. Anyway,
fan fiction aside, let's get to your question. Peaches what
are they? Well, uh, peaches are tree candy. Um, they're
(10:29):
are there are fruit that develops from the pollinatd flowers
on peach trees botanical name Prunus persica. There in the
family Rosacia, the rose family along with stuff from apples
to roseberries to roses. Peach trees need cool springs and
warm summers to um to produce flowers and then fruit,
(10:50):
so they do best in temperate regions. They are self pollinating,
but bees and other pollinators certainly help um and their
flowers are just oh, just real pretty pink, with these
little sprays of like red to maroon ish purple in
the center, lovely um. And the fruit that they grow
is called a droop. And we've talked about droops before.
A marichino, cherries, nutmeg, and pecans are all types of
(11:12):
droops um. So so a drop a droop is a
is a fruit that grows a single seed tucked away
inside layers of thin outer skin and then varyingly thick
flesh and then a hard inner pit or stone that
then encases the actual seed. And in the case of
pecans and nutmeg and stuff like that, that the flesh
(11:33):
isn't the point um for humans anyway, We're we're looking
for that inner seed. But in the case of peaches
and cherries and other droops like apricots and plums, um,
it's the opposite. You don't really want the seed because
it's bitter, because it contains this compound called a magdalene
um that our bodies unhelpfully break down into hydrogen cyanide
(11:54):
unless you cook it out. But the flesh around the
pit comes in, in the case of peaches, in a thick, juicy,
sweet layer um in shades from creamy white to yellow
to blushing red um. Peaches are usually round dish, about
the size of an apple. The shape and size do vary.
There there are flatter variants um, some of which just
(12:16):
look like like wobbly little doughnuts, and I love them.
I don't think I've ever observed this phenomenon, but oh,
keep an eye out there, so cute um. The skin
of peaches ranges in color from pale yellow to to
red uh to to like a red so deep that
it's purply um. And generally varieties of peaches with lighter
(12:39):
flesh and skin UM contain less acid than deeper colored
varieties UM. Though that's because farmers have selected for those
combinations and not due to any like genetic predisposition for
those combinations. And speaking of the skin, it is fuzzy, yes,
And this brings us to a fun fact um. Nectarines
are just a variety d of peach that has a
(13:02):
single gene um differing, and that single gene is just
a binary function of fuzzy skin versus not fuzzy skin.
What yep yep? And researchers think that all nectarines descend
from a single uh mutant European peach like five hundred
(13:22):
or more years ago. Oh wow, that's wild right, um,
And the the all the other differences that you get
between peaches and nectarines were probably um started with that
single genome, you know, but have been extrapolated out through
through breeding for specific traits since then. Oh well, okay,
(13:43):
here's another nerdy art project x men, but with fruit.
Oh so you got your original mutant peach mutant mutant nectarine. Yeah,
doctor x stin doctor next you. Then you've got peefee
keen and plumb pickins lemon squeezy. I'm just I'm just brainstorming. No, no,
(14:13):
don't know. Now we're still we're still in the workshop phase.
Sure all right, and listeners, um, we know you've got
some ideas for this. Oh gosh, uh okay okay um.
There there are two like key types of peaches um
(14:33):
cling and freestone um. And this describes how attached the
pit is to the flesh of the peach around it. Um.
Freestone pits just pop right off cling pits. Cling. Many
popular fresh varieties are varieties that you would eat fresh
are are freestone because they're easier to eat. But that's
not necessarily true. Depends on what you're growing in your area,
(14:55):
what people are shipping in um. And again you know
there're going to be differences among different variet these, but
the overall flavor profile of peaches is bright and tangy,
um and sweet and a little bit like floral, with
maybe some creamy vanilla butter kind of flavors in there,
and and just a touch of bitter sweet almond in
there somewhere. Um. Some have a slippy, milty texture when
(15:17):
they're ripe, and some remain firmer. UM. Though, if a
peach is dry or mealy, that means that it was chilled,
probably for shipping in storage, before it had a chance
to um to really develop its full flavor and texture. However,
this doesn't mean that you cannot refrigerate peaches once you
get them home. UM. You know, like like if you're
(15:37):
gonna be eating them fresh, especially, probably probably let them chill.
Out on the counter for at least a couple of
days to to develop those flavors and textures, because they
are a type of fruit that will continue to do
that after picking. Um. Yeah, yeah, so once once, once,
once they're soft, refrigerate them. If not, let him hang out.
Let him hang out. That's what we say. What about
(16:01):
the nutrition, peaches are very low in fact and high
in dietary fiber. They've got a good smattering of vitamins,
particularly A and C, and also minerals, particularly potassium. They're
not like too to sugary um, so they will help
fill you up, but won't really keep you going very long.
So they're good as a as a snack or or
paired with more fats and proteins to uh to to
(16:24):
round out your dietary intake. I feel like I could
be wrong, but I feel like peaches come up in
a lot of Apocalypse things like canned peaches. Oh sure,
they are a popular canned good. Yeah, And I feel
like maybe it was twenty eight days Later where one
(16:44):
of the characters is saying, like, you can eat these
can peaches and half your coca cola, but you're going
to have a real sugar You're gonna have a real
problem with sugar crash later. Oh, I feel like they
come up and lost as well. When um, when Hurley
is like basically eating nothing but canned fruit um for
the first several days to weeks and like eventually has
(17:06):
to go make friends with other people because he's like,
I need I need a source of protein. Yes, I
remember exactly the episode you're talking about. Um, we do
have some numbers for you. China is the world's largest
producer of peaches. In two thousand one, a peach monogram
(17:27):
listed four cultivars registered in that country. Three of the
countries at National germ Plasm Repositories are being used to
preserve the peaches genetic diversity. Oh I love National germ
plasm repositories. That's uh. The in the U. S. D.
A also has one at Davis, California that reportedly houses
(17:50):
some seven hundred varieties of peach. Whoa huh. Peaches, however,
have one of the smallest genomes of all flowering plants
and only eight pairs of chromosomes um. However, they contain
over eighty different volatile compounds UM, which are like smell
to taste compounds that that give um anything, it's flavor.
(18:14):
And the reason, by the way, um speaking of volatile compounds,
that peach pairs so well with mint is the same
reason that mint julips are tasty. Um peaches have some
of the same like oaky, nutty, vanilla flavors that oak
aged whiskey does. UM from a category called gamma lactones.
Gamma lactones. It's just science, it's just science. I feel
(18:38):
like gamma lactones could be in our fruit x men.
Oh yeah. Also, every time I think of mint julips
and meant in general, I'm reminded of the interview that
got away JP when coming to Kentucky listeners. He had
this beautiful Southern voice and he said all kinds of
(18:58):
things that just we're so somehow so deep and comforting
but odd. Yeah, just some of the JP. Well we
we we talked. We talk at length about him in
our Kentucky road Trip episode. Yeah, but I think we
(19:19):
aired so yeah, yeah, you can you can check out
that for more of it. That that really is like
we just weren't we We we weren't rolling, like we
didn't We were just there for a tasting and we
just happened to get this incredibly delightful human person, yes,
who talked a lot about bourbon and all these oaky
Venilai flavors and mint and mint julip. So he did.
(19:42):
He was so memorable every time I think of Mitt
Yeah and but but yeah, just just these bond mots
just rolled off of his tongue and in this very
lovely Kentucky accent. What was one of my favorites? He
he just because we were doing this tasting out on
this patio and it was a very nice day. And
at one point we were, you know, like like breathing
through our noses and out through our mouths while drinking
(20:05):
whiskey because that's the normal thing to do, and and
he was just looking out over the vista and he
just commented, as if to himself, you know, I think
you could live a thousand years and never have a
day just as lovely as this. Yes. Oh so I
was like JP, like, why aren't we rolling? And he
(20:26):
had a running commentary on Oscar the Cat and his movie?
So it was excellent one that got away. Yeah, this
was all Woodroff reserve. Um J JP Mattingly Um is
that his name? Yeah? JP? Should you ever happen to
be listening. We miss you. It was a lovely experience.
(20:47):
It was indeed a lovely day. Yeah. And and y'all,
if you ever get a chance to to travel, um
perhaps in the aftertimes, to to Kentucky and to Woodriff Reserve, Uh,
you know, keep it, keep an eye out. M M.
I feel like he might be like the ghost of
Bourbon or something. May mean he doesn't really even exist. Okay,
(21:14):
we we were talking about peaches, yes we were, uh
and um after After China, Spain and Italy are are
the other two top countries in in peach production. The
US is fourth, um and after apples, peaches and nectarines
are the most important economically economically important fruit crop in
(21:35):
the EU. So I know right. As of twenty nineteen,
the world was producing over twenty two million metric tens
of peaches per year. Wow, that is a lot. Mm
hmmm um. And US peach production during twenty nineteen was
some eight hundred thousand tons um valued it over six
(21:56):
hundred million dollars. Of that about is sold fresh and
is processed, and of that most like is canned, sent frozen,
and the remainder dried or or or otherwise processed. But
all right, now we have to clear the air. We
(22:17):
have to address the elephant in the room. We do.
Though Georgia is known as the Peach State, it actually
only accounts for about zero point three eight percent of
the state's agricultural economy, and peach production in Georgia only
accounts are about between three to five percent nationally. Okay, small, um,
(22:45):
Georgia only had eleven thousand and sixteen acres of peach orchard. Still,
that amounts to a hundred and thirty million pounds of
peaches each year. But California and South Carolina produce more
peaches then Georgia does. Mm hmm. Georgia peaches do typically
mature a bit earlier, which in the past helped the
(23:05):
state submit its status as the peach state. Uh yeah,
a bit earlier than other Eastern states anyway. California is
growing season is April through October. Southeastern peaches don't come
in until May. Um. Uh. And yeah, California does produce
the most peaches in the United States um, some fifty
six percent of our fresh peach crop and of our
(23:27):
processed peaches as of UM. But yeah, like like Jersey
produces about as many peaches as Georgia. So m hmm. Furthermore, um,
the peaches, the state fruit of Georgia, is also the
state fruit of South Carolina. Um. South Carolina sometimes bills
(23:49):
itself as the tastier peach state. And I'm just like like, like, dang,
that peach tree is shady like dock lay up. I
am outraged and offended. Yeah, any time I get to
try a Southern accent, like a real Southern accent fun times, Well, no,
(24:13):
that's not a real Southern accent at all. What I
mean is the cartoon in Southern accent? Yes, yes, yes, yes,
I saw. I remember this from a couple of years ago.
Stephen Colbert, who was from South Carolina. They had a
whole rant about how South Carolina has more peaches and
you're better and they should be the peach state and
(24:33):
also don't get me started on marbecue. And I still
remember it's Stephen Colbert. I won't forget, is it. Are you?
Are you starting at grudge with Stephen Colbert right now?
There's been a grudge ever since stared Heck, well that's right,
Stephen Colbert. I'm coming for you. Then, I'm going to
(24:56):
bring peaches and we'll see what settle this. Oh I will,
I guess bless both our hearts because I guess, I'm
I guess I'm obligated to be like your second here
for this, for this peach battle. Um, I love it.
(25:17):
I love it. I'm sorry that I am so rash
and outraged over things that are pretty meaningless. Well, um uh,
while I think about the trouble that you've just gotten
both of us into. Um, you know, we're we're gonna
we're gonna get some history for you in a minute.
But first we're gonna take a gonna take a quick
(25:38):
break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So. Peaches the peach
was a most likely domesticated in China all the way
(25:59):
back in one thousand BC, and from there merchants and
travelers carried peaches west on the Silk Road to Persia,
where they where they grew quite well, and they are
still a bountiful crop in modern day Iran. Yes, and
after Alexander the Great encountered peaches there, he brought some
(26:19):
back with him to Greece. Peaches were being grown in
Greece by b and they were being sold in Rome
by fifty b C, where they were called Persian apples.
The Romans spread peaches throughout Europe with their empire um
and that botanical name that I mentioned, Prinus persica, comes
from this association with Persia. The name peach itself also
(26:44):
derives from the same association. Um. The Latin persicum and
Greek Persican became pesca in medieval Latin, and then pesh
in Old French. Huh. Interesting, it's kind of close to
the word for fish. That makes me want to do
further research. Chinese farmers wrote of the best growing practices
(27:07):
four peaches in the sixth century see including the use
of torches to keep insects away during lunar New Year,
and a bunch of other things. A lot of things,
but that was the most interesting one to me personally.
In one thousand CE, over thirty peach cultivars were documented
in that country. Sometime in the fifteen hundreds, Wound Changan
(27:28):
wrote Journey to the West, in which a character named
Monkey King eats the peaches of Immortality from the peach
garden of the Heavenly Queen Mother, and perhaps because of this,
in China, the peach is sometimes a symbol of immortality,
and the tree itself sometimes is viewed as a tree
of life. Peaches are also sometimes given to older folks
(27:50):
who wish them long life. And according to some things
I read, brides might carry peach blossoms at weddings. So
please right in if that is true. Uh oh, that
would be a lovely addition to a to a wedding
bookcase certainly. And and also I wanted to do a
side note here. Journey to the West is um if
if you have not heard of it or read any
of it, it's this. It's this epic story, um that
(28:13):
a lot of other tales are based on, like for example,
Dragon ball Z what yeah, yep uh Guku is is
the monkey king character? Yeah, A bunch of a bunch
of anime like Sayuki was based on Journey to the West. Um.
There's there's a lot of amazing translations and iterations of it.
(28:35):
So definitely definitely looked that up if you if you
never have, it's a it's a great, great, great little
bit of storytelling. I have such fond memories of being
in elementary school and me and my next through neighbor
would get home from school and Dragon ball Z would
come on and we call each other on the phone
and we would watch it together. But we would get
(28:57):
increasingly annoyed every time because Dragon ball Z infamously, at
least in the United States, was probably twenty minutes recap
and ten minutes new stuff. So we would be on
the phone like come on, yeah, we know, get to it.
And we did it every day. It was so fun.
(29:19):
I had a great, great time. I don't have a
lot of experience with the property, but I understand that
it's big. Yes. Yes, we went to that Dragon ball
Z themed flush show right in Orlando. Awesome. That was awesome.
That was a really good fun um. Yeah, and there
was that like kid dressed as Goku there. Baby, it
(29:43):
was so cute. That was Oh that was great. Um
at any rate. Peaches um. By the twelve hundreds, the
surname peach Head showed up in Europe, and sometime around hundreds,
the word peach was sometimes used as a verb to
me um to inform against or betray one's accomplices. Although
(30:05):
this does not come from the fruit um, it's it's
a it's from variants of the word impeach, which itself
is from a whole separate route um the Latin petica
meaning like a shackle and coming from the root pad
for for foot. Though interestingly both peach the fruit and
impeach the verb. We're entering English around the same time
(30:25):
and like the thirteen to fourteen hundreds, So I wonder
if there was just some like like cross pollination there.
I would never peach against you, Lauren, all we neither
against you, see any Yeah. In the fifty hundreds, peaches
made their way to North America, with Spanish monks settling
(30:46):
in the St. Augustine area in Florida. Because the seeds
are hardy and easy to transport in the pits um,
they spread relatively quickly. In the South. Peach trees were
common around Jamestown, Virginia. By seven. John Lawson, who was
a British explorer naturalist, wrote about peaches and quote, they
make our land a wilderness of peach trees. And he
(31:09):
was particularly referring to all of the peach trees he
saw and all of the fruit on them in the Carolinas.
Oh yeah, and this is a this is a common
issue with with peach farming. Actually that um that peach
trees will put off so much fruit. Um that that
you really you really have to print it back. Um
a if you want to get the best peaches out
(31:30):
of the deal. Because um, as with many kinds of
fruit trees, if you just let them kind of grow
willy nilly, um, you're you're they're they're going to be
growing more for the seeds than for the quality of
the fruit. So cutting back will let them really develop
the biggest juiciest fruits possible. Um. But but be in
the case of peaches, they will grow so many heavy
(31:51):
fruits that you'll just have branches breaking off by the
end of growing season. Yeah. Yeah. By the end of
the seventeen hundreds, the word peach could be used to
mean an attractive lady human um Uh. The usage of
this would would morph to mean a good person in general, like,
oh what a peachum by the end of the eighteen hundreds.
(32:15):
Raphael Moses often gets the credit for being the first
to market peaches in Georgia in eighteen fifty one. He
also often gets the credit for being the first to
market them outside of Georgia, pioneering away for safely shipping
peaches in Champagne baskets. Peaches were shipped up to New
York from the port of Savannah between eighteen fifty eight
to eighteen sixty. Yeah. This this would have been the
(32:39):
start of around the time when um, when refrigeration and
and ice were starting to come up the technologies for those. Sure. Yeah.
And we have a Belgian father and son duo Louis
and Prosper berkman Um And they brought an orchard in
August of Georgia and named it fruit Land. I know,
(33:02):
I think they named it. The other people might have
named it that, but any case, it's called Fruitland eventually
pretty same after it was erected, and their goal was
to demonstrate that fruit could be an important crop in
the South and a potential replacement for cotton, which was
very detrimental for the soil when you think about just
growing it over and over. Um. In the eighteen fifties,
(33:24):
a group of horticulturists started experimenting with selective breeding of
fruits like grapes, pears, and peaches in an effort to
create a strong fruit economy in the South. The Alberta
peach was their biggest success story. It's texture and long
lasting flavor allowed for it to be shipped all across
the country with less ice needed. After Samuel Rump debuted
(33:48):
in the eighteen seventies, which it was named after his wife.
By the way, the number of peach trees in the
South went up by five times from eighteen eighty eight
to nineteen four. Rump was also integ role and finding
ways to ship peaches more effectively, and because of all this,
Romp is sometimes known as the father of the Georgia
peach industry Georgia peach Southern accent, you elude me every time.
(34:16):
By the eighties, Fruitland was sending twenty five thousand catalogs
across the United States. The peach industry also took advantage
of the newly available labor after the Civil War, a
time when the South was looking to rebrand itself and
pivoting away from cotton, which was a crop associated with
slavery and poverty, to fruit instead. Was a part of that.
(34:41):
Because the successful growing of peaches often depended on brushing
up on some literature, peach growing was viewed as refined.
I saw some old articles even referred to it as European. Okay, Indeed,
they were also expensive. Peaches were me that labor force
largely made up of black people making the peach industry
(35:05):
run could not afford them. On top of that, peach
orchards typically didn't make a profit for the first three
or four years, meaning that many newly freed Black Americans
could not afford to start their own orchards. Yeah. Um
and wrapped up in and all of this um, we
also get the descriptive term peaches and cream um, which
(35:29):
refers positively to u to pale complexions. Around the turn
of the twentieth century, rights from to Nix girls out
of peach growing hub Fort Valley, Georgia hosted peach blossom
festivals and these were essentially marketing events that boasted and
perhaps exaggerated about the peaches prominence in that area. There
(35:54):
was a barbecue parade, they were speakers from members of Congress,
they were governors speaking the agent. It was a big
to do. One year, yes, one year they had a
camel and National Geographic reported on it. They reported on it.
(36:15):
Why not sure? I suppose? Um? Another year, the pageant
queen or a dress belonging to actress Mary Pickford valued
at over thirty dollars. What attendees came from all over
and some estimates put the crowd at around twenty thousand people,
(36:36):
flooding into the town's population of four thousand people. While
something's changed from year to year, there was always a
play that told the story of the Peach in the
form of a young woman who searched the world for home.
She went all over until she finally found it in Georgia,
one true forever home. Uh huh, okay, yes yes. At
(37:03):
the time, Fort Valley was pushing to be the home
of the new Peach County, which they eventually were able
to successfully do, making it George's sixty one and final county,
and these festivals were instrumental in solidifying the largely untrue
and at the very least extremely glossed over narrative of
(37:25):
the Georgia Peach. Yes, yeah, Yeah. Georgia was marketed as
being the Peach State um as early as n and
along with all of this, the historically black college Fort
Valley State University was created primarily to educate black students
about working in peach orchards. The school went on to
(37:46):
become significant to the civil rights movement in that area.
The peach industry in the South has gone through several
rough patches, past brown rot peach tree short life which
I leave is uh, peach trees dying within two years
before they've really Yeah, and that was a big problem.
(38:08):
In the nineteen sixties. To combat this, grower successfully campaigned
for a new peach lab in Byron, Georgia, with the
help of Senator and Chair of the Subcommittee on Agricultural
Appropriations Richard B. Russell Jr. The growers argued that not
only would the research be good for boosting peach growth,
it would also be informative and growing other fruit in
(38:28):
the South and providing for jobs for black Southerners and
in their words, keeping them from quote already crowded offices
of our welfare agencies. Yeah. This was also during the
Civil Rights movement, when black growers were calling for equal rights.
Coupled with the population shift in the South from rural
areas to cities, the peach industry's previous use of and
(38:51):
reliance on systemic discrimination became abundantly clear. But alright, hard
pivot Um James and the Giant Peach was published in
and the movie came out in Forever Haunted My Dreams.
I have not seen it since, but I've learned it
(39:11):
is on Disney Plus and I think I'm gonna see
what happens when I watch it. Okay, I think you should.
It's all right, it's it's pretty, it's pretty great. I
mean it does have some some heck in animation, but alright, alright,
heck in animation. And speak of animation, I guess Princess
(39:33):
Peach first appeared in Super Mario Brothers in and yes,
this is a food show. But I really must read
this quote about their relationship, The relationship of Mario and
Princess Peach, Yes, from James McMahon's UM Games Raider article.
(39:53):
The quote goes as follows, should we really be encouraging
the union of Mario and Peach? Anyway? Remember this is
a man with side gigs as a doctor, a carpenter,
a pro cart driver, and an archaeologist. Unless we forget
he regularly competes at the Olympic Games. What chance of
a healthy relationship. And for all the work Mario puts
into saving Peach, he rarely sees anything of the reward.
(40:16):
Maybe Peach is just me. Yeah, she'll give Mario a
kiss on the nose. Sometimes she'll take him a cake.
But let us not forget that Princess peach is the
Toultarian ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom. Can she not put
a knighthood in his way some other title? Can she
not stretch to one evening on her the kingdom's nearest
pizza express. The whole article is very delightful, full of
(40:39):
things like that. Oh hell heck. So if you're nerds
like us, go check it out. Share. Yeah, but all
right away from video game Peach named characters Georgian Georgia
officially named the peach the official state fruit in um
(41:00):
and I hate to add this in given our recent
grudge match against Stephen are are recently named grudge match.
I don't know how long it's been going on for
you with Stephen Colbert, But but South Carolina did name
the peach their state fruit back in like I want
to still like eighty three or eighty four. Booh no,
(41:27):
I won't stand for what I say again. Um uh.
Due to climate change, peach production has really been influx
around the world over the past couple of decades um,
with some really previously steady farms producing less and some
traditionally less successful regions producing a lot more. Um. But
(41:49):
the overall value of peaches has been on the rise,
and we must end with a very very important note
about the peach emoji. Yes, another another emoji ending? Cool? Yeah,
I mean it. Yes, Surprisingly, we get to talk about
(42:10):
emojis more often than I could have ever imagined on
this show. So yes. The peach emoji, sometimes called the
butt emoji, was introduced in and if you will allow me,
I would love to read this entry from dictionary dot com.
And I love I love the dictionaries. Some some dictionaries
(42:31):
are including information about emoji and these are modern times.
That's great. Oh yeah, mictionary dot com has a whole
section of emoji definition. So it's part of our language. Yeah, okay, okay,
go go ahead, please all right. Officially called the peach emoji,
the butt emoji was first introduced in under Unicode six
(42:51):
point oh as it's fuzzy, cleft appearance looks like a plumperrand.
The peach emoji quickly became to stand for buttocks on
social media and in text messages, especially a woman's in
sexual context. In Apple released an updated version of the
peach emoji that resembled the fruit more than the anatomy,
(43:12):
but the change was met with such popular uproar that
the company reverted to its original design. Oh my gosh,
that's so great. I love that so much. Oh wow. Yes.
And also recently there was the impeach emoji with Donald
Trump's impeachment and it came to stand for resistance and
(43:36):
there's an entry on on that as well in dictionary
dot com. So the peach emoji has got a lot
going on it, does it certainly does? M hm huh,
I mean much much like the word peach itself, um,
and and the fruit itself. Sure, all around what's going on?
(43:56):
But but we we have said pretty much what we
have to say about it. Today. We do have some
listener mail for you, but first we've got one more
quick break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with
(44:18):
lin Man. It was a peach tree and then gave
you a peach. That's actually a great segue into this
listener mail. Okay, Yes. Sydney wrote, upon hearing that Lauren
has never watched Kung Fu Panda, I want to encourage
(44:40):
you to give it a try. Is delightful and we
can all use a bit of delighting nowadays. Furthermore, Atlanta
zoo had a panda named po after the aforementioned Kung
Fu panda. I think the Dreamwork Studio donated money for
the naming rights, but it's for a good cause. With
such connections, how could you not watch the movie? I agree.
(45:02):
As a child, I lived near the Beijing Zoo, and
whenever relatives visiting from out of town, we're jazzed about
taking the kids to see the pandas I would be
all confused, like, what's the big deal? We see them
once a month, or your panta's where you live. One
of those visits, a cousin saw a golden pheasant and
wondered aloud whether a bird's pretty would taste good. Yeah,
(45:24):
that's one of my um favorite memories from China. I
have a similar memory from India actually, but I was
driving to a school on the highway and panda just
crossed to cross like both lines of traffic. The million
(45:44):
just kind of just strolled right on, just like okay,
like you do. Had So he found some bamboo, was
eating it in one of the lanes, and we were
all just kind of like chilling, and then he went
he turned around in the other direction. We're like, okay,
are you going that way and then he turned back around.
We said, okay, he out for quite a bit, just
taking this pand of time. Yeah, sure, sure, and then yeah,
(46:07):
chong Do. I went to chong Do and there's so
many pandas there, and my brain sort of I was like, no,
this can't be. I've never seen as many pandas in
real life before. Yeah. Uh um. And and I for
for the record, I don't have any kind of resistance
to watching Comfy Panda. It's it's on our we have
(46:28):
movie nights sometimes, the Savor team, and it's on our list. Uh.
I just haven't. I just haven't yet. I haven't yet.
It's very open to the idea, working working towards it. Absolutely,
It's very sweet. And the peach scene, the peach tree
scene is very sweet. Okay, all right, all right heck um.
(46:52):
Stephanie wrote, I was so excited to see your episode
on a Regano. I just wish you had come out
a few years ago. I'm originally from a Mexican was
holding California and grew up eating loads of oregano in
soups and stews marinates. It was one of my mom's
core flavorings. I moved to the UK in and missed
nice Mexican food, but I was a lazy student who
(47:12):
couldn't cook, so I ate frozen pizzas and didn't think
much about it. A bit over a year in I
got really homesick and bought the stuff to make a
vegetarian version of my mom's favorite soup veggies, stock oregano,
some other seasonings, but it just didn't taste right. I
chucked it up to being a bad cook, but even
over the years, as my cooking has greatly improved, it
(47:32):
never tastes quite right. I was talking to my mom
a few weeks ago and complained again that my food
didn't taste right, and she finally explained that I'm most
likely using Greek oregano rather than Mexican. I thought having
to learn a new word for cilantro and zucchini was confusing,
but now there's different oregano's. I've just ordered ten ounces
(47:54):
of Mexican oregano from my favorite online Mexican chop, which
doesn't sound like a lot but apparently a very freezer bag,
so I'll be having a lot of Mexican food this summer. Anyway.
I finally had an excuse to share my silly misunderstanding.
And I hope you're keeping safe and thank you for
keeping me entertained and hungry to announced. This is a
(48:15):
lot of a regano. Yes that is that is um
but I I have faith in you to put it
to good use. Oh absolutely, and please, like, if you
feel so inclined, send us some some of the recipes.
You're making a whole world in front of you with announces.
(48:36):
I definitely didn't know there were different types of Regao
until that episode too, so on the same page, yep, yep,
that was that was a whole new Reguano world. Oh
now that song is in my head, very catchy. Super
producer Dylan, you used to like to sing that one
at karaoke. Uh, I always hear that song. It's a
(48:58):
good karaoke song. Yeah, there's a lot of there's a
lot of Disney Disney songs in our karaoke out pattings, Yeah,
which probably says a lot about the type of groups
that we are. But anyway, all right, thanks to both
of those listeners for writing in. If you would like
to write to us, that you can. Our email is
Hello at favor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
(49:20):
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at
Savor pud and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is a production of my Heart Radio. For more
podcasts to my heart Radio, you can visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan
Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about peaches, yes, because I have been seeing them
pop up all over It is peach season as we speak, Yes,
and we are in the peach state, as Georgia is
very proud to brand itself. Um, it is everywhere. It
(00:32):
is in all of our road names. We have a
peach tree like drop instead of a New Year's ball drop.
Peep peach drop instead of a ball drop. Right, yeah, exactly.
The Peach Tree road Race, which is the largest tin
k in the world. It's on fourth of July, although
this year, because of pandemic, it has been postponed to
(00:53):
Thanksgiving times. Oh okay, all right, that sounds like a
much nicer time of year to write. Exactly. Yes, So
I run this every year and it is miserable. It's miserable.
I got heat poisoning, oh my gosh. Yeah. And I
(01:15):
think last year the mayor. The mayor comes and speaks
before it starts, and I believe she literally said don't
run it, which she met like, walk it, don't overheat.
But I was like, is this the race? Um, and
it's fun because my parents used to run it, so
I have all their old shirts. Uh, the shirt is
(01:36):
the trophy in this case. Huh yeah. Yeah. And and
and peach peach emblems on all of those items that
we've got a peach on our license plate. Yeah, on
our licenses. Um yeah, pretty much any Georgia touristy type thing,
you're gonna see some peaches. And I was thinking about
(01:57):
this and a terrible slash, very fun time at you know,
when I was young, memory game, I used to drink
fuzzy navels as my drink that I would order at bars,
and not just one but um, well, you know, hey, hey,
we all we find my my drink of choice was
(02:20):
was the mud slide for a number of years, so
I yeah, you know, we learn, you know, yes, and
I think those are fine drinks, but I would never ever,
at my current state, order more than one. Yeah. I sugar,
I have learned, does not treat me well, um as
(02:43):
a combination in combination with alcohol, So yes, and a
fuzzy navel if you don't know, is essentially orange juice
and peach snops and something else. But essentially that's it.
It's a very sweet fruit drink. And that reminds me.
I was thinking about all of the instances Peaches show
up in her pop culture. And here's your Signfeld reference
(03:05):
for the episode, Um, Peach snops Elaine when she has secrets.
If you want her to div hold, you just have
to get her drunk on Peach snops. Okay. And then
of course there's James and the Giant Peach. There's Princess Peach.
Um Kung Fu Panda has a lot of stuff about Peaches.
(03:27):
Makes more sense to me now that I've done this research. Elf.
The children's book they were going to write an ELF
was about Peaches. Um. Right, the name of my co
hosta front stuff mom never told you her dog his
name Peaches Gertrude mcpusin. We have a very adversary relationship.
(03:49):
Oh yeah, I think I think we've made friends. Okay,
it Peaches is coming around. Yeah. She she gave me
what Samantha likes to say was over excited bloody lip.
But she gave me a bloody lip in either case.
So um, well, I'm I'm glad if it was out
(04:10):
of excitement and not active malice. Malice, Yeah, oh, I
I think so. But you know. Um. And speaking of
malice there, Peaches was the name of the woman who
ran Woodrof dining Hall at Georgia Tech and I that
was on the west side of campus, and that's where
I spent my freshman and sophomore year. Um. So I
(04:34):
was at Wodrop dining Hall all the time. And she
was infamous. She was so infamous she had a Facebook
page dedicated to her and to like I think it
was called Peaches yelled at me, Um, she she didn't
stand for any of our college student nonsense. Yeah, no,
(04:54):
you gotta be firm. Oh gosh, she was. She yelled
at me. I have the distinct slash not distinct at all,
honor of I was trying to because I'm an adult
and I pretty much just ate cereal. In college, I
had a plastic cup with milk and knowing me cinnamon
(05:18):
toast crunch um, and I was trying to take it
out of the dining hall up to my my room,
and she stopped me and yelled at me and made
me pour it out in front of everyone down a
dream because because it wasn't like a to go cup
like it was like one of the in cafeteria only Okay, yeah,
(05:39):
I you know, it was an honor in some ways.
So if anyone has that experience or no speeches who
I'm talking about, please write it and I would love
love to hear story. Yes, yes, um uh. There's also,
of course the presidents of the United States of America
(05:59):
song peaches, millions of peaches. Peaches for me. Um, there's
a for for anyone else who is way, way, way
too into the magician's television show. There's peaches and plums. Um,
it's Annie. You're giving me a blank. Look, I don't
worry about it. If anyone who wants to talk about
magicians let me let me know. I'm into it. Um, yes,
(06:21):
yes I. Netflix has recently recommended it to me, and
I immediately thought of you. I'm pretty sure, given that
you're a big supernatural fan, that it would be absolutely
up your alley. Um. But but yeah, it's when when
you get to it, let me know. Peaches and plums.
Peaches and plums. Anyway, I like the inflection. It makes
(06:43):
me believe that it's some kind of like sad curses
the thing. But I guess I'll have to watch it
too far out. I guess you will, all right, all right, Um,
August is National peach month, which, as we record, is
coming up. It is. Um. I you know, I don't
(07:04):
really get peaches that often, but my friends I love them.
Oh my gosh, I love them. So this is a
very exciting time. Oh yeah, yeah, I am, you know,
due to the whole thing where um uh quarantine has
made it so that time is meaningless now. Um. When
the first Georgia peaches started, and Pierson Farms is one
(07:26):
particularly well known and loved peach farm here in the
state of Georgia, when their peaches started coming out in May,
I was like, it cannot It's like I was like,
it's like March, like when like how can there be? Oh?
Oh it's May. It's definitely May is the month that
it is. Um. Oh yeah, no, I love a peach.
I just um just over the weekend, Uh, my friend
(07:49):
had a birthday and we um we wound up um
grilling over grilling, as it turned out, some peaches for
for dessert. But I we we made the best of it.
We uh. They weren't like charcoal bricket over grilled. They
were they were merely um. We we wound up squeezing
the edible portion of the fruit out of the husk
(08:14):
that had developed around them. Um. I wound up just
just mixing. I had gotten some some marscapone to to
top these these grilled peaches with, and wound up just
mixing the flesh of the fruit into peaches and plums
um into the marscapone and using that to top some
short bread cookies with. It was it's a mint in there. Uh,
(08:36):
it's it's I still have some of that tub in
my fridge, And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like,
why am I not just eating that straight out of
the tub right at this very moment. That sounds delicious?
And I might do the reverse throwing the rocket the
window at your house later. Oh yeah, I get some
kind of system. Oh gosh, we do That would be great, Oh,
(09:00):
it would be It sounds so good. I love a
chard peach. I like, I actually like peach with basil
our basil um as people like to correct me. But yeah,
and I really love peaches with cinnamon. And that brings
me to a fact I want to put in here
that it is useless, but I'm going to share it.
I just learned a new fan fiction term which is
(09:22):
really impressive because I love fan fiction. Um, and it's
related to our recent classic episode on cinnamon Okay, So
cinnamon roll which means, in the world of fan fiction,
a sweet, kind, good character, too good for this world,
usually a fictional character that suffers, which is precisely my
fanfic jam. That is exactly what I like. So have
(09:45):
you never heard this term? That's girl? I'm glad. I'm
glad that you you've you've learned a new, um new
vocabulary for that. Yeah, and I think it's from an
Onion article headline originally where it was like cinnamon rolls
too good for this world or something. Yeah, but I've
been seeing it. But because of the world of fan fiction,
a lot of those terms means something that is very sexual.
(10:07):
I was appointing looking at oh okay, but I finally
I finally had to do it and it was so sweet. Anyway,
fan fiction aside, let's get to your question. Peaches what
are they? Well, uh, peaches are tree candy. Um, they're
(10:29):
are there are fruit that develops from the pollinatd flowers
on peach trees botanical name Prunus persica. There in the
family Rosacia, the rose family along with stuff from apples
to roseberries to roses. Peach trees need cool springs and
warm summers to um to produce flowers and then fruit,
(10:50):
so they do best in temperate regions. They are self pollinating,
but bees and other pollinators certainly help um and their
flowers are just oh, just real pretty pink, with these
little sprays of like red to maroon ish purple in
the center, lovely um. And the fruit that they grow
is called a droop. And we've talked about droops before.
A marichino, cherries, nutmeg, and pecans are all types of
(11:12):
droops um. So so a drop a droop is a
is a fruit that grows a single seed tucked away
inside layers of thin outer skin and then varyingly thick
flesh and then a hard inner pit or stone that
then encases the actual seed. And in the case of
pecans and nutmeg and stuff like that, that the flesh
(11:33):
isn't the point um for humans anyway, We're we're looking
for that inner seed. But in the case of peaches
and cherries and other droops like apricots and plums, um,
it's the opposite. You don't really want the seed because
it's bitter, because it contains this compound called a magdalene
um that our bodies unhelpfully break down into hydrogen cyanide
(11:54):
unless you cook it out. But the flesh around the
pit comes in, in the case of peaches, in a thick, juicy,
sweet layer um in shades from creamy white to yellow
to blushing red um. Peaches are usually round dish, about
the size of an apple. The shape and size do vary.
There there are flatter variants um, some of which just
(12:16):
look like like wobbly little doughnuts, and I love them.
I don't think I've ever observed this phenomenon, but oh,
keep an eye out there, so cute um. The skin
of peaches ranges in color from pale yellow to to
red uh to to like a red so deep that
it's purply um. And generally varieties of peaches with lighter
(12:39):
flesh and skin UM contain less acid than deeper colored
varieties UM. Though that's because farmers have selected for those
combinations and not due to any like genetic predisposition for
those combinations. And speaking of the skin, it is fuzzy, yes,
And this brings us to a fun fact um. Nectarines
are just a variety d of peach that has a
(13:02):
single gene um differing, and that single gene is just
a binary function of fuzzy skin versus not fuzzy skin.
What yep yep? And researchers think that all nectarines descend
from a single uh mutant European peach like five hundred
(13:22):
or more years ago. Oh wow, that's wild right, um,
And the the all the other differences that you get
between peaches and nectarines were probably um started with that
single genome, you know, but have been extrapolated out through
through breeding for specific traits since then. Oh well, okay,
(13:43):
here's another nerdy art project x men, but with fruit.
Oh so you got your original mutant peach mutant mutant nectarine. Yeah,
doctor x stin doctor next you. Then you've got peefee
keen and plumb pickins lemon squeezy. I'm just I'm just brainstorming. No, no,
(14:13):
don't know. Now we're still we're still in the workshop phase.
Sure all right, and listeners, um, we know you've got
some ideas for this. Oh gosh, uh okay okay um.
There there are two like key types of peaches um
(14:33):
cling and freestone um. And this describes how attached the
pit is to the flesh of the peach around it. Um.
Freestone pits just pop right off cling pits. Cling. Many
popular fresh varieties are varieties that you would eat fresh
are are freestone because they're easier to eat. But that's
not necessarily true. Depends on what you're growing in your area,
(14:55):
what people are shipping in um. And again you know
there're going to be differences among different variet these, but
the overall flavor profile of peaches is bright and tangy,
um and sweet and a little bit like floral, with
maybe some creamy vanilla butter kind of flavors in there,
and and just a touch of bitter sweet almond in
there somewhere. Um. Some have a slippy, milty texture when
(15:17):
they're ripe, and some remain firmer. UM. Though, if a
peach is dry or mealy, that means that it was chilled,
probably for shipping in storage, before it had a chance
to um to really develop its full flavor and texture. However,
this doesn't mean that you cannot refrigerate peaches once you
get them home. UM. You know, like like if you're
(15:37):
gonna be eating them fresh, especially, probably probably let them chill.
Out on the counter for at least a couple of
days to to develop those flavors and textures, because they
are a type of fruit that will continue to do
that after picking. Um. Yeah, yeah, so once once, once,
once they're soft, refrigerate them. If not, let him hang out.
Let him hang out. That's what we say. What about
(16:01):
the nutrition, peaches are very low in fact and high
in dietary fiber. They've got a good smattering of vitamins,
particularly A and C, and also minerals, particularly potassium. They're
not like too to sugary um, so they will help
fill you up, but won't really keep you going very long.
So they're good as a as a snack or or
paired with more fats and proteins to uh to to
(16:24):
round out your dietary intake. I feel like I could
be wrong, but I feel like peaches come up in
a lot of Apocalypse things like canned peaches. Oh sure,
they are a popular canned good. Yeah, And I feel
like maybe it was twenty eight days Later where one
(16:44):
of the characters is saying, like, you can eat these
can peaches and half your coca cola, but you're going
to have a real sugar You're gonna have a real
problem with sugar crash later. Oh, I feel like they
come up and lost as well. When um, when Hurley
is like basically eating nothing but canned fruit um for
the first several days to weeks and like eventually has
(17:06):
to go make friends with other people because he's like,
I need I need a source of protein. Yes, I
remember exactly the episode you're talking about. Um, we do
have some numbers for you. China is the world's largest
producer of peaches. In two thousand one, a peach monogram
(17:27):
listed four cultivars registered in that country. Three of the
countries at National germ Plasm Repositories are being used to
preserve the peaches genetic diversity. Oh I love National germ
plasm repositories. That's uh. The in the U. S. D.
A also has one at Davis, California that reportedly houses
(17:50):
some seven hundred varieties of peach. Whoa huh. Peaches, however,
have one of the smallest genomes of all flowering plants
and only eight pairs of chromosomes um. However, they contain
over eighty different volatile compounds UM, which are like smell
to taste compounds that that give um anything, it's flavor.
(18:14):
And the reason, by the way, um speaking of volatile compounds,
that peach pairs so well with mint is the same
reason that mint julips are tasty. Um peaches have some
of the same like oaky, nutty, vanilla flavors that oak
aged whiskey does. UM from a category called gamma lactones.
Gamma lactones. It's just science, it's just science. I feel
(18:38):
like gamma lactones could be in our fruit x men.
Oh yeah. Also, every time I think of mint julips
and meant in general, I'm reminded of the interview that
got away JP when coming to Kentucky listeners. He had
this beautiful Southern voice and he said all kinds of
(18:58):
things that just we're so somehow so deep and comforting
but odd. Yeah, just some of the JP. Well we
we we talked. We talk at length about him in
our Kentucky road Trip episode. Yeah, but I think we
(19:19):
aired so yeah, yeah, you can you can check out
that for more of it. That that really is like
we just weren't we We we weren't rolling, like we
didn't We were just there for a tasting and we
just happened to get this incredibly delightful human person, yes,
who talked a lot about bourbon and all these oaky
Venilai flavors and mint and mint julip. So he did.
(19:42):
He was so memorable every time I think of Mitt
Yeah and but but yeah, just just these bond mots
just rolled off of his tongue and in this very
lovely Kentucky accent. What was one of my favorites? He
he just because we were doing this tasting out on
this patio and it was a very nice day. And
at one point we were, you know, like like breathing
through our noses and out through our mouths while drinking
(20:05):
whiskey because that's the normal thing to do, and and
he was just looking out over the vista and he
just commented, as if to himself, you know, I think
you could live a thousand years and never have a
day just as lovely as this. Yes. Oh so I
was like JP, like, why aren't we rolling? And he
(20:26):
had a running commentary on Oscar the Cat and his movie?
So it was excellent one that got away. Yeah, this
was all Woodroff reserve. Um J JP Mattingly Um is
that his name? Yeah? JP? Should you ever happen to
be listening. We miss you. It was a lovely experience.
(20:47):
It was indeed a lovely day. Yeah. And and y'all,
if you ever get a chance to to travel, um
perhaps in the aftertimes, to to Kentucky and to Woodriff Reserve, Uh,
you know, keep it, keep an eye out. M M.
I feel like he might be like the ghost of
Bourbon or something. May mean he doesn't really even exist. Okay,
(21:14):
we we were talking about peaches, yes we were, uh
and um after After China, Spain and Italy are are
the other two top countries in in peach production. The
US is fourth, um and after apples, peaches and nectarines
are the most important economically economically important fruit crop in
(21:35):
the EU. So I know right. As of twenty nineteen,
the world was producing over twenty two million metric tens
of peaches per year. Wow, that is a lot. Mm
hmmm um. And US peach production during twenty nineteen was
some eight hundred thousand tons um valued it over six
(21:56):
hundred million dollars. Of that about is sold fresh and
is processed, and of that most like is canned, sent frozen,
and the remainder dried or or or otherwise processed. But
all right, now we have to clear the air. We
(22:17):
have to address the elephant in the room. We do.
Though Georgia is known as the Peach State, it actually
only accounts for about zero point three eight percent of
the state's agricultural economy, and peach production in Georgia only
accounts are about between three to five percent nationally. Okay, small, um,
(22:45):
Georgia only had eleven thousand and sixteen acres of peach orchard. Still,
that amounts to a hundred and thirty million pounds of
peaches each year. But California and South Carolina produce more
peaches then Georgia does. Mm hmm. Georgia peaches do typically
mature a bit earlier, which in the past helped the
(23:05):
state submit its status as the peach state. Uh yeah,
a bit earlier than other Eastern states anyway. California is
growing season is April through October. Southeastern peaches don't come
in until May. Um. Uh. And yeah, California does produce
the most peaches in the United States um, some fifty
six percent of our fresh peach crop and of our
(23:27):
processed peaches as of UM. But yeah, like like Jersey
produces about as many peaches as Georgia. So m hmm. Furthermore, um,
the peaches, the state fruit of Georgia, is also the
state fruit of South Carolina. Um. South Carolina sometimes bills
(23:49):
itself as the tastier peach state. And I'm just like like, like, dang,
that peach tree is shady like dock lay up. I
am outraged and offended. Yeah, any time I get to
try a Southern accent, like a real Southern accent fun times, Well, no,
(24:13):
that's not a real Southern accent at all. What I
mean is the cartoon in Southern accent? Yes, yes, yes, yes,
I saw. I remember this from a couple of years ago.
Stephen Colbert, who was from South Carolina. They had a
whole rant about how South Carolina has more peaches and
you're better and they should be the peach state and
(24:33):
also don't get me started on marbecue. And I still
remember it's Stephen Colbert. I won't forget, is it. Are you?
Are you starting at grudge with Stephen Colbert right now?
There's been a grudge ever since stared Heck, well that's right,
Stephen Colbert. I'm coming for you. Then, I'm going to
(24:56):
bring peaches and we'll see what settle this. Oh I will,
I guess bless both our hearts because I guess, I'm
I guess I'm obligated to be like your second here
for this, for this peach battle. Um, I love it.
(25:17):
I love it. I'm sorry that I am so rash
and outraged over things that are pretty meaningless. Well, um uh,
while I think about the trouble that you've just gotten
both of us into. Um, you know, we're we're gonna
we're gonna get some history for you in a minute.
But first we're gonna take a gonna take a quick
(25:38):
break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So. Peaches the peach
was a most likely domesticated in China all the way
(25:59):
back in one thousand BC, and from there merchants and
travelers carried peaches west on the Silk Road to Persia,
where they where they grew quite well, and they are
still a bountiful crop in modern day Iran. Yes, and
after Alexander the Great encountered peaches there, he brought some
(26:19):
back with him to Greece. Peaches were being grown in
Greece by b and they were being sold in Rome
by fifty b C, where they were called Persian apples.
The Romans spread peaches throughout Europe with their empire um
and that botanical name that I mentioned, Prinus persica, comes
from this association with Persia. The name peach itself also
(26:44):
derives from the same association. Um. The Latin persicum and
Greek Persican became pesca in medieval Latin, and then pesh
in Old French. Huh. Interesting, it's kind of close to
the word for fish. That makes me want to do
further research. Chinese farmers wrote of the best growing practices
(27:07):
four peaches in the sixth century see including the use
of torches to keep insects away during lunar New Year,
and a bunch of other things. A lot of things,
but that was the most interesting one to me personally.
In one thousand CE, over thirty peach cultivars were documented
in that country. Sometime in the fifteen hundreds, Wound Changan
(27:28):
wrote Journey to the West, in which a character named
Monkey King eats the peaches of Immortality from the peach
garden of the Heavenly Queen Mother, and perhaps because of this,
in China, the peach is sometimes a symbol of immortality,
and the tree itself sometimes is viewed as a tree
of life. Peaches are also sometimes given to older folks
(27:50):
who wish them long life. And according to some things
I read, brides might carry peach blossoms at weddings. So
please right in if that is true. Uh oh, that
would be a lovely addition to a to a wedding
bookcase certainly. And and also I wanted to do a
side note here. Journey to the West is um if
if you have not heard of it or read any
of it, it's this. It's this epic story, um that
(28:13):
a lot of other tales are based on, like for example,
Dragon ball Z what yeah, yep uh Guku is is
the monkey king character? Yeah, A bunch of a bunch
of anime like Sayuki was based on Journey to the West. Um.
There's there's a lot of amazing translations and iterations of it.
(28:35):
So definitely definitely looked that up if you if you
never have, it's a it's a great, great, great little
bit of storytelling. I have such fond memories of being
in elementary school and me and my next through neighbor
would get home from school and Dragon ball Z would
come on and we call each other on the phone
and we would watch it together. But we would get
(28:57):
increasingly annoyed every time because Dragon ball Z infamously, at
least in the United States, was probably twenty minutes recap
and ten minutes new stuff. So we would be on
the phone like come on, yeah, we know, get to it.
And we did it every day. It was so fun.
(29:19):
I had a great, great time. I don't have a
lot of experience with the property, but I understand that
it's big. Yes. Yes, we went to that Dragon ball
Z themed flush show right in Orlando. Awesome. That was awesome.
That was a really good fun um. Yeah, and there
was that like kid dressed as Goku there. Baby, it
(29:43):
was so cute. That was Oh that was great. Um
at any rate. Peaches um. By the twelve hundreds, the
surname peach Head showed up in Europe, and sometime around hundreds,
the word peach was sometimes used as a verb to
me um to inform against or betray one's accomplices. Although
(30:05):
this does not come from the fruit um, it's it's
a it's from variants of the word impeach, which itself
is from a whole separate route um the Latin petica
meaning like a shackle and coming from the root pad
for for foot. Though interestingly both peach the fruit and
impeach the verb. We're entering English around the same time
(30:25):
and like the thirteen to fourteen hundreds, So I wonder
if there was just some like like cross pollination there.
I would never peach against you, Lauren, all we neither
against you, see any Yeah. In the fifty hundreds, peaches
made their way to North America, with Spanish monks settling
(30:46):
in the St. Augustine area in Florida. Because the seeds
are hardy and easy to transport in the pits um,
they spread relatively quickly. In the South. Peach trees were
common around Jamestown, Virginia. By seven. John Lawson, who was
a British explorer naturalist, wrote about peaches and quote, they
make our land a wilderness of peach trees. And he
(31:09):
was particularly referring to all of the peach trees he
saw and all of the fruit on them in the Carolinas.
Oh yeah, and this is a this is a common
issue with with peach farming. Actually that um that peach
trees will put off so much fruit. Um that that
you really you really have to print it back. Um
a if you want to get the best peaches out
(31:30):
of the deal. Because um, as with many kinds of
fruit trees, if you just let them kind of grow
willy nilly, um, you're you're they're they're going to be
growing more for the seeds than for the quality of
the fruit. So cutting back will let them really develop
the biggest juiciest fruits possible. Um. But but be in
the case of peaches, they will grow so many heavy
(31:51):
fruits that you'll just have branches breaking off by the
end of growing season. Yeah. Yeah. By the end of
the seventeen hundreds, the word peach could be used to
mean an attractive lady human um Uh. The usage of
this would would morph to mean a good person in general, like,
oh what a peachum by the end of the eighteen hundreds.
(32:15):
Raphael Moses often gets the credit for being the first
to market peaches in Georgia in eighteen fifty one. He
also often gets the credit for being the first to
market them outside of Georgia, pioneering away for safely shipping
peaches in Champagne baskets. Peaches were shipped up to New
York from the port of Savannah between eighteen fifty eight
to eighteen sixty. Yeah. This this would have been the
(32:39):
start of around the time when um, when refrigeration and
and ice were starting to come up the technologies for those. Sure. Yeah.
And we have a Belgian father and son duo Louis
and Prosper berkman Um And they brought an orchard in
August of Georgia and named it fruit Land. I know,
(33:02):
I think they named it. The other people might have
named it that, but any case, it's called Fruitland eventually
pretty same after it was erected, and their goal was
to demonstrate that fruit could be an important crop in
the South and a potential replacement for cotton, which was
very detrimental for the soil when you think about just
growing it over and over. Um. In the eighteen fifties,
(33:24):
a group of horticulturists started experimenting with selective breeding of
fruits like grapes, pears, and peaches in an effort to
create a strong fruit economy in the South. The Alberta
peach was their biggest success story. It's texture and long
lasting flavor allowed for it to be shipped all across
the country with less ice needed. After Samuel Rump debuted
(33:48):
in the eighteen seventies, which it was named after his wife.
By the way, the number of peach trees in the
South went up by five times from eighteen eighty eight
to nineteen four. Rump was also integ role and finding
ways to ship peaches more effectively, and because of all this,
Romp is sometimes known as the father of the Georgia
peach industry Georgia peach Southern accent, you elude me every time.
(34:16):
By the eighties, Fruitland was sending twenty five thousand catalogs
across the United States. The peach industry also took advantage
of the newly available labor after the Civil War, a
time when the South was looking to rebrand itself and
pivoting away from cotton, which was a crop associated with
slavery and poverty, to fruit instead. Was a part of that.
(34:41):
Because the successful growing of peaches often depended on brushing
up on some literature, peach growing was viewed as refined.
I saw some old articles even referred to it as European. Okay, Indeed,
they were also expensive. Peaches were me that labor force
largely made up of black people making the peach industry
(35:05):
run could not afford them. On top of that, peach
orchards typically didn't make a profit for the first three
or four years, meaning that many newly freed Black Americans
could not afford to start their own orchards. Yeah. Um
and wrapped up in and all of this um, we
also get the descriptive term peaches and cream um, which
(35:29):
refers positively to u to pale complexions. Around the turn
of the twentieth century, rights from to Nix girls out
of peach growing hub Fort Valley, Georgia hosted peach blossom
festivals and these were essentially marketing events that boasted and
perhaps exaggerated about the peaches prominence in that area. There
(35:54):
was a barbecue parade, they were speakers from members of Congress,
they were governors speaking the agent. It was a big
to do. One year, yes, one year they had a
camel and National Geographic reported on it. They reported on it.
(36:15):
Why not sure? I suppose? Um? Another year, the pageant
queen or a dress belonging to actress Mary Pickford valued
at over thirty dollars. What attendees came from all over
and some estimates put the crowd at around twenty thousand people,
(36:36):
flooding into the town's population of four thousand people. While
something's changed from year to year, there was always a
play that told the story of the Peach in the
form of a young woman who searched the world for home.
She went all over until she finally found it in Georgia,
one true forever home. Uh huh, okay, yes yes. At
(37:03):
the time, Fort Valley was pushing to be the home
of the new Peach County, which they eventually were able
to successfully do, making it George's sixty one and final county,
and these festivals were instrumental in solidifying the largely untrue
and at the very least extremely glossed over narrative of
(37:25):
the Georgia Peach. Yes, yeah, Yeah. Georgia was marketed as
being the Peach State um as early as n and
along with all of this, the historically black college Fort
Valley State University was created primarily to educate black students
about working in peach orchards. The school went on to
(37:46):
become significant to the civil rights movement in that area.
The peach industry in the South has gone through several
rough patches, past brown rot peach tree short life which
I leave is uh, peach trees dying within two years
before they've really Yeah, and that was a big problem.
(38:08):
In the nineteen sixties. To combat this, grower successfully campaigned
for a new peach lab in Byron, Georgia, with the
help of Senator and Chair of the Subcommittee on Agricultural
Appropriations Richard B. Russell Jr. The growers argued that not
only would the research be good for boosting peach growth,
it would also be informative and growing other fruit in
(38:28):
the South and providing for jobs for black Southerners and
in their words, keeping them from quote already crowded offices
of our welfare agencies. Yeah. This was also during the
Civil Rights movement, when black growers were calling for equal rights.
Coupled with the population shift in the South from rural
areas to cities, the peach industry's previous use of and
(38:51):
reliance on systemic discrimination became abundantly clear. But alright, hard
pivot Um James and the Giant Peach was published in
and the movie came out in Forever Haunted My Dreams.
I have not seen it since, but I've learned it
(39:11):
is on Disney Plus and I think I'm gonna see
what happens when I watch it. Okay, I think you should.
It's all right, it's it's pretty, it's pretty great. I
mean it does have some some heck in animation, but alright, alright,
heck in animation. And speak of animation, I guess Princess
(39:33):
Peach first appeared in Super Mario Brothers in and yes,
this is a food show. But I really must read
this quote about their relationship, The relationship of Mario and
Princess Peach, Yes, from James McMahon's UM Games Raider article.
(39:53):
The quote goes as follows, should we really be encouraging
the union of Mario and Peach? Anyway? Remember this is
a man with side gigs as a doctor, a carpenter,
a pro cart driver, and an archaeologist. Unless we forget
he regularly competes at the Olympic Games. What chance of
a healthy relationship. And for all the work Mario puts
into saving Peach, he rarely sees anything of the reward.
(40:16):
Maybe Peach is just me. Yeah, she'll give Mario a
kiss on the nose. Sometimes she'll take him a cake.
But let us not forget that Princess peach is the
Toultarian ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom. Can she not put
a knighthood in his way some other title? Can she
not stretch to one evening on her the kingdom's nearest
pizza express. The whole article is very delightful, full of
(40:39):
things like that. Oh hell heck. So if you're nerds
like us, go check it out. Share. Yeah, but all
right away from video game Peach named characters Georgian Georgia
officially named the peach the official state fruit in um
(41:00):
and I hate to add this in given our recent
grudge match against Stephen are are recently named grudge match.
I don't know how long it's been going on for
you with Stephen Colbert, But but South Carolina did name
the peach their state fruit back in like I want
to still like eighty three or eighty four. Booh no,
(41:27):
I won't stand for what I say again. Um uh.
Due to climate change, peach production has really been influx
around the world over the past couple of decades um,
with some really previously steady farms producing less and some
traditionally less successful regions producing a lot more. Um. But
(41:49):
the overall value of peaches has been on the rise,
and we must end with a very very important note
about the peach emoji. Yes, another another emoji ending? Cool? Yeah,
I mean it. Yes, Surprisingly, we get to talk about
(42:10):
emojis more often than I could have ever imagined on
this show. So yes. The peach emoji, sometimes called the
butt emoji, was introduced in and if you will allow me,
I would love to read this entry from dictionary dot com.
And I love I love the dictionaries. Some some dictionaries
(42:31):
are including information about emoji and these are modern times.
That's great. Oh yeah, mictionary dot com has a whole
section of emoji definition. So it's part of our language. Yeah, okay, okay,
go go ahead, please all right. Officially called the peach emoji,
the butt emoji was first introduced in under Unicode six
(42:51):
point oh as it's fuzzy, cleft appearance looks like a plumperrand.
The peach emoji quickly became to stand for buttocks on
social media and in text messages, especially a woman's in
sexual context. In Apple released an updated version of the
peach emoji that resembled the fruit more than the anatomy,
(43:12):
but the change was met with such popular uproar that
the company reverted to its original design. Oh my gosh,
that's so great. I love that so much. Oh wow. Yes.
And also recently there was the impeach emoji with Donald
Trump's impeachment and it came to stand for resistance and
(43:36):
there's an entry on on that as well in dictionary
dot com. So the peach emoji has got a lot
going on it, does it certainly does? M hm huh,
I mean much much like the word peach itself, um,
and and the fruit itself. Sure, all around what's going on?
(43:56):
But but we we have said pretty much what we
have to say about it. Today. We do have some
listener mail for you, but first we've got one more
quick break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with
(44:18):
lin Man. It was a peach tree and then gave
you a peach. That's actually a great segue into this
listener mail. Okay, Yes. Sydney wrote, upon hearing that Lauren
has never watched Kung Fu Panda, I want to encourage
(44:40):
you to give it a try. Is delightful and we
can all use a bit of delighting nowadays. Furthermore, Atlanta
zoo had a panda named po after the aforementioned Kung
Fu panda. I think the Dreamwork Studio donated money for
the naming rights, but it's for a good cause. With
such connections, how could you not watch the movie? I agree.
(45:02):
As a child, I lived near the Beijing Zoo, and
whenever relatives visiting from out of town, we're jazzed about
taking the kids to see the pandas I would be
all confused, like, what's the big deal? We see them
once a month, or your panta's where you live. One
of those visits, a cousin saw a golden pheasant and
wondered aloud whether a bird's pretty would taste good. Yeah,
(45:24):
that's one of my um favorite memories from China. I
have a similar memory from India actually, but I was
driving to a school on the highway and panda just
crossed to cross like both lines of traffic. The million
(45:44):
just kind of just strolled right on, just like okay,
like you do. Had So he found some bamboo, was
eating it in one of the lanes, and we were
all just kind of like chilling, and then he went
he turned around in the other direction. We're like, okay,
are you going that way and then he turned back around.
We said, okay, he out for quite a bit, just
taking this pand of time. Yeah, sure, sure, and then yeah,
(46:07):
chong Do. I went to chong Do and there's so
many pandas there, and my brain sort of I was like, no,
this can't be. I've never seen as many pandas in
real life before. Yeah. Uh um. And and I for
for the record, I don't have any kind of resistance
to watching Comfy Panda. It's it's on our we have
(46:28):
movie nights sometimes, the Savor team, and it's on our list. Uh.
I just haven't. I just haven't yet. I haven't yet.
It's very open to the idea, working working towards it. Absolutely,
It's very sweet. And the peach scene, the peach tree
scene is very sweet. Okay, all right, all right heck um.
(46:52):
Stephanie wrote, I was so excited to see your episode
on a Regano. I just wish you had come out
a few years ago. I'm originally from a Mexican was
holding California and grew up eating loads of oregano in
soups and stews marinates. It was one of my mom's
core flavorings. I moved to the UK in and missed
nice Mexican food, but I was a lazy student who
(47:12):
couldn't cook, so I ate frozen pizzas and didn't think
much about it. A bit over a year in I
got really homesick and bought the stuff to make a
vegetarian version of my mom's favorite soup veggies, stock oregano,
some other seasonings, but it just didn't taste right. I
chucked it up to being a bad cook, but even
over the years, as my cooking has greatly improved, it
(47:32):
never tastes quite right. I was talking to my mom
a few weeks ago and complained again that my food
didn't taste right, and she finally explained that I'm most
likely using Greek oregano rather than Mexican. I thought having
to learn a new word for cilantro and zucchini was confusing,
but now there's different oregano's. I've just ordered ten ounces
(47:54):
of Mexican oregano from my favorite online Mexican chop, which
doesn't sound like a lot but apparently a very freezer bag,
so I'll be having a lot of Mexican food this summer. Anyway.
I finally had an excuse to share my silly misunderstanding.
And I hope you're keeping safe and thank you for
keeping me entertained and hungry to announced. This is a
(48:15):
lot of a regano. Yes that is that is um
but I I have faith in you to put it
to good use. Oh absolutely, and please, like, if you
feel so inclined, send us some some of the recipes.
You're making a whole world in front of you with announces.
(48:36):
I definitely didn't know there were different types of Regao
until that episode too, so on the same page, yep, yep,
that was that was a whole new Reguano world. Oh
now that song is in my head, very catchy. Super
producer Dylan, you used to like to sing that one
at karaoke. Uh, I always hear that song. It's a
(48:58):
good karaoke song. Yeah, there's a lot of there's a
lot of Disney Disney songs in our karaoke out pattings, Yeah,
which probably says a lot about the type of groups
that we are. But anyway, all right, thanks to both
of those listeners for writing in. If you would like
to write to us, that you can. Our email is
Hello at favor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
(49:20):
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at
Savor pud and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is a production of my Heart Radio. For more
podcasts to my heart Radio, you can visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan
Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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