Fresh is always better than frozen, cannedor freeze-dried. A pea picked straight from the garden, a tomato off the vine, a fruit pulled from the treeor a fish fresh from the water are always preferable to their counterparts in cans, bagsor freezer-proof boxes.
At our restaurants we always use fresh, local seafood and produce when available. These days, the availability is better than it's ever been.
My fresh-at-all-cost credentials established, I have a caveat: I love canned peaches.
Thatin no waydenigrates fresh peaches. My love for that particular summer fruit is well documented. Fresh Chilton County, Alabama, peaches are, by far, my favorite item of produce, as statedin dozens of columns over 18 years. Nevertheless, a canned peach holds some sway in my culinary canon.
That doesn’t hold true for all canned fruits and vegetables. Canned asparagus is bad. Nothing about iteven comes close to fresh asparagus. It doesn’t even taste like asparagus. Canned asparagus is mushy and tastes like canned English peas. You’ll never catch me eating canned asparagus. Not so with canned peaches.
A few weeks ago I meta friend at a restaurant that had a salad bar. I am typically not a salad barfan.But I occasionally find myself at one and theresult isalways the same: I fill my salad plate with peaches.
It's always puzzled me why peaches— like chocolate pudding— make an appearance on a salad bar. But I don’t question it too much because I like to eat them.
Decades ago, when I frequented salad-bar concepts more often, I'd fill halfthe plate with salad and the other half with peaches. But salad dressing always got on the peaches and I usually left some salad on the plate. There were never any peaches left on the plate. On this recent occasion I just opted for peaches.
“I love canned peaches. I don’t know why I don’t eat them more often," I told my wife, son and friend at the table.
My passion for canned peaches is an infatuation that's lasted over a half of a century. My mother always offered some type of canned fruit with supper, alternatingpears, fruit co*cktailand peaches. I tolerated the other fruitsbut loved the peaches.
Pears are good. These days my pear exposure is mostly with the poached variety. As a kid, I would drink the pear juice left in the can. My grandmother served a canned pear half on a lettuce leaf, witha dollop of mayonnaise in the center. I always ate around the mayonnaise, which in my opinion, has no business being anywhere in the same vicinity as a pear.
Fruit co*cktail was probably served at my childhood home more frequently than pears or peaches, but it doesn’t hold a prominent place in my memory. What I remember most about fruit co*cktail: My brother and I would fight over who got most of the cherries. One of my main gripes with canned fruit co*cktail was the small pieces of fruit.Canned pears and peaches are best when served in halves. Mother’s Restaurant in New Orleans used to put fruit co*cktail in their bread pudding. They still might.
Peaches were, by far, my favorite canned fruit at supper. Freshpeaches are always preferable, but canned peaches are good. Frozen peaches, on the other hand, have no purpose other than daiquiris or pies, and even there,fresh are preferred.
Canned peaches are my Rosebud. Something about a canned peach connects tochildhood and takes me back to that supper table on Bellewood Drive. Not many foods do that. The dilemma: If I love canned peaches so much, why don’t I havethem more often? They make me happy every time I eat them.
From this day forward I vow to eat more foods that make me happy. I’m starting with canned peaches (at least until the fresh ones arrive).
Contact Robert St. John through his website, www.robertstjohn.com.
Grilled Peach Shortcake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoonssugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 tablespoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoonsalt
¾ cup cold unsalted butter (1½ sticks), diced
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup heavy cream, chilled
¼ cup sour cream
1 teaspoonvanilla extract
Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water or milk )
6 large, fresh, ripe peaches, peeled and halved
¼ cup melted butter
¾ cup sugar
2 teaspoonslemon juice
½ teaspoonvanilla
Peach ice cream
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Sift the flour, 2 tablespoon sugar, the baking powderand salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Blend in butter at the lowest speed and mix until the butter is the size of peas. Combine eggs, heavy cream, sour cream and vanilla extract and quickly add to the flour and butter mixture. Mix until just blended. The dough will be sticky.
Dump the dough out onto a well-floured surface. Flour your hands and pat the dough out to ¾-inch thick. You should see lumps of butter in the dough.
Cut biscuits with a 3-4-inch cutter and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment.
Brush the tops with the egg wash. Sprinkle with sugar, and bake 18-20 minutes, until the outsides are crisp and the insides are fully baked. Let cool on a wire rack.
Prepare the grill. Brush the peaches with melted butter. Cook peaches, flat side down, over direct medium heat, for 10 minutes. Rotate the peaches a quarter turn after 3 minutes, then turn them over once after 6 minutes of cooking. Remove the peaches from the grill,and toss them in a bowl with the sugar, lemon juice and vanilla (the excess liquid will be used as a syrup topping). Cover and keep warm until needed.
Split shortcakes in half, top each with a scoop of peach ice cream. Place a warm peach half on the ice cream and top with the remaining shortcakes half. Drizzle the syrup from the bowl with the peaches over each shortcake and serve immediately.Yield: 6-8 servings.
Source: Robert St. John
