Tutti Frutti

Savor the Ultimate Flavor of Summer

The summer offers such an orgy of fruits that I luxuriate in them au naturel. Not that I’m in the altogether; they are. I eat them as freshly picked as possible, at room temperature, usually as plain as nature gave them to us. (Okay, occasionally I put a dollop of vanilla ice cream on the berries or peaches.) Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, varieties of cherries, white peaches, yellow peaches, plums large and small, apricots, figs, and all sorts of melons: most of the fruits you can name are summer fruits, and in summer they are so plentiful that even the big supermarkets sometimes have something good to offer. Typically, though, they overchill produce, and it sits past its prime. Fortunately, where there are fresh vegetables, there are also fresh fruits. And if you can’t be bothered to seek them both out, you are depriving yourself of one of the most essential ways French women fill their summers with eating pleasure without getting fat. (You’re also missing the convenience of a perfect dessert that needs virtually no preparation.)

Market Fresh Fruit: An Equal Opportunity Pursuit

True, French women have it a little easier than most, with a gastronomic culture built around the market and a government that subsidizes the quality, not the quantity, of its agriculture. But that’s the way the people have always had it, and that’s the way they want it. In America, as elsewhere, supply chases demand. A relative indifference to premium summer produce is precisely what limits its availability. But if you plant it, they will come. Farmers’ markets are the future, at least concerning those foodstuffs in which freshness counts. If there isn’t a market very near you now, chances are there will be soon. Meanwhile, vote with your feet and find the nearest one. Don’t miss out. With a balanced consumption of fruit and a cultivated taste for its splendors, summer can be a season-long holiday from the risk of getting fat. And we all deserve that kind of a break today, don’t we?

Fleeting Pleasures

Even in an ideal world, not all the fruits of summer are destined to be eaten fresh, and the perfectly ripe cannot always be found. Sometimes we must make do with what we can find, even in farmers’ markets. Apricots are one of my very favorite fruits, but as motivated as I am, I’m still hard pressed to find great ones, save right off the tree. More often than not, most of what’s for sale tends to be woolly and lacking in that true apricot flavor, knowledge of which more often comes from preserves than from encounters with ripe apricots. Cooked preparations concentrate the flavors and the natural sugars. Those of you who have experienced a fresh, juicy apricot can vouch for the rarity of the same at any distance from where the best grow—in Turkey or California, for example. In my part of Provence they cultivate an acidulée variety available for only a few weeks. That doesn’t give one much time. We savor what we can. At home, my mother would preserve them, to produce wonderful tarts in the winter. (Sour cherries and rhubarb are other favorites of the women in my family, who tend to like their sweetness cut with a bit of tartness.)

Here are a couple of my favorite summer fruit recipes:
Baked Apricots
Grilled Peaches with Cinnamon and Rosemary