On being ... a delicious dilemma (or ode to a peach)

By Ingrid Sapona 

A couple weeks ago I was at a restaurant with a friend and the seasonal salad featured peaches. It seemed early to us for peaches, but the restaurant was at a winery and it wouldn’t surprise me if they had their own peach trees. So, we decided to give it a try. Well, the salad was delicious! It was the perfect combination of salad greens, red onion, julienned red pepper, feta, lightly curried, candied pecans, grilled fresh peaches, and the perfect maple vinaigrette. 

Enthusiastic about this season’s crop, we stopped at a nearby farm stand to take some peaches home. Since they were the first of the season, I figured they probably weren’t freestone, but that was ok. (For non-peach-o-philes: freestone peaches, of which red havens are my favourite, have pits that release from the peach with the merest tug. Red havens are extra special because the peach flesh left behind when you pop the pit out is a lovely red that makes the peach look even more inviting.) 

The next day, as I washed the peaches, my thoughts returned to that salad. Did I have the ingredients on hand? Might I be able to reproduce it? Peaches: check. Greens, red onion, red pepper, feta: check. All I needed was a recipe for curried, candied pecans and maple vinaigrette. A quick Google search turned up a few options for both and my pantry had the necessary ingredients for those too. 

I was torn. Even though the winery restaurant wasn’t a fancy place, I’m well aware of the problems with trying to recreate a dish I’ve enjoyed at a restaurant. The risk is disappointment because I’ll never get it quite the same as the one they served. For example, I know I tend to be heavy handed when adding nuts and cheese to salads. (I love nuts AND cheese and sometimes it seems – in my salads – that greens are primarily a nut and cheese delivery device.) And even if I make a real effort to be more judicious with the nuts and cheese, who’s to say the recipe I use for the candied nuts will be spicy enough and sweet enough – rather than too spicy or too sweet? 

But those reasons for not trying to make the peach salad aren’t the only obstacle. The hurdle I confront when I consider cooking with fabulous local fruit is the reality that I find it just as satisfying eating the fruit qua fruit. Or, to put it another way: it seems a waste to relegate the perfect peach to a mere salad ingredient when it’s delicious on its own. 

I have the same issue every time I see recipes that call for watermelon. Nothing says summer to me better than a cold piece of sweet, juicy watermelon. If you peak in my frig in late summer, I guarantee you’ll see the better part of an entire shelf given over to watermelon (cut or waiting to be cut). Given my love for watermelon – and the fact that unlike other fruit that’s grown elsewhere at different times of the year and then shipped so that we treat then as basically season-less – I can never bring myself to use it as an ingredient. Yes, I agree there’s something magic about feta with watermelon and a hint of mint – but… Honestly, if the watermelon’s sweet and ripe and cold – leave the mint for a mojito and the feta for a charcuterie board and pass me a chunk of the watermelon! 

Don’t misunderstand – there are plenty ways I happily cook with fruit. I gladly add apples to salads, or use them for applesauce to serve with pork dishes. I’m happy to add blueberries and bananas to pancakes, and to use mango for a chutney for sandwiches or burgers. And of course, fruit is the star of many wonderful desserts I love making. But in all these examples, the other ingredients you’re combining the fruit with (especially sugar, butter, and eggs in the case of many desserts) kind of transform the fruit. In those cases, it almost doesn’t matter if the fruit is fresh and in season.  

Ultimately, I decided not to try to recreate the restaurant peach salad. The curried, candied pecans were an important ingredient and I just didn’t think any of the recipes I’d found for making them seemed right. But, because peach season is here, the New York Times that week ran a bunch of recipes featuring peaches. One of them caught my eye: Tomato and Peach Salad with Whipped Goat Cheese (by Alexa Weibel).  In reviewing the recipe, I realized I had all the ingredients. And, since I didn’t have a pre-conceived idea of what the dish should taste like, the risk of disappointment was less. So, I decided to sacrifice, er, use a few of the precious peaches to try it. Well, I’m thrilled – and, if I’m honest, relieved – to report that it was fantastic! Absolutely worth the peaches and something I will no doubt make again before the last of the local peaches are gone. 

Ah, the summer. Flavourful and fleeting … Enjoy all of it, however you will… 

© 2024 Ingrid Sapona