Waterloo – Peach

Ahhhh… Peach. There’s a complicated one. It’s kind of like that friend who is not a friend. Or is that overstating it? As far as fruit goes, a ripe peach off a peach tree—there is nothing better (we had a peach tree in our back yard, when I was kid). It’s hard to get them at the right degree of ripeness though—they go from rock-hard to mushy… real fast. That’s part of the charm, though. I’m wondering to what degree peaches have evolved… I don’t really know. I’m not going to research peaches at this point. Remember Peaches record stores? They could make a comeback. Who’s got the keys? Anyway, the problem with peach is that there are some heinous artificial peach flavors out there, helping to define some heinous products—peach flavored tea, tobacco, “juice-drink,” and the worst—peach schnapps—which means, some particularly heinous cocktails. And now… sparkling water. The thing is, it’s not that bad. For one thing, they went easy on the flavor. Maybe it’s just a higher quality flavor, I don’t know, but either way, it’s fairly subtle. The other thing is, not being sweet actually helps. It’s kind of the contradiction with these sparkling waters. You remember that saying? “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” Apparently, that was back before they made medicine sweet—before they put sugar in everything. It must have seemed pretty radical to make a soft drink with flavor but no sweetener whatsoever. But, I have to say, genius—is any single inventor credited? I think it was one of those things that originated simultaneously across a variety of test kitchens in Spain, France, Italy, Soho, my mom’s, etc.

2.5.25