What do expect when you want to eat fresh fruit? I ask that question because I’ll tell you what I expect. The fruit must have good color, not mushy so fairly firm as is with cherries and pears. Red Haven peaches can be good color, but too firm for eating out of hand when picked off the tree so they need some more ripening.

When they are ready to eat out of hand then they can almost be drank they are so juicy.

We were at a large grocery chain this week, when we saw a display of peaches. I looked at the boxes the clerk was dumping onto the display and noticed they were from Osoyoos. The name of the grower was also on the box and it was a name I recognized.

We took the lid off of one case and looked at the fruit. Some was red, some was yellow, it all looked ripe. I didn’t handle any of it though. We bought a case and brought it home.

I wanted a fresh, ripe peach, the kind where the juice runs down your chin when you bite into it. The first one I picked up was hard, it was yellow and red but decidedly not ripe, as were all the rest. Disappointed but determined to get them to the edible point, I removed three from the box and took the rest down stairs where it was cool so they wouldn’t ripen so fast.

Within two days the peaches were soft. Now for the juicy peach! I bit into it, mealy! I couldn’t believe it. I tried the other two and they were the same way. What happened to them?

We found the only way to eat them uncooked was to slice them into a bowl while they were hard and apply sugar. The peaches made good cobbler too, but eating them out of hand was out of the question.

I don’t recall ever encountering mealy peaches as a boy. Even the late peaches such as the Hales and the Elbertas were not mealy. They were not as sweet as the Red Havens for they were for canning .

I hope this mealy issue doesn’t turn others away from Okanagan fruit, for the grocery store serves thousands every week and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has encountered this problem.

I may be spoiled too because I know what quality fruit is so my expectations are high.