Please Don't Wipe Your Nose on His Peaches

Please Don't Wipe Your Nose on His Peaches

We were buying about twenty or so “seconds” from Stovers, whose stand greets you to the right as you enter the Oak Park Farmers’ Market from the main south entrance. We usually buy these slightly unsightly peaches – bruised, blemished and otherwise un-pristine – to peel and vac-seal for eating over the colder months.

Stovers had a lot of seconds, all for half-price, which comes out to about fifty cents each. Not bad.

“How come you have so many seconds?” I asked Brandon Dinges, who was tending the peaches.



“Well, some get damaged in transit, and people always squeeze them to see if they’re ready to eat, and that can bruise them, too.”

I’ve been guilty of squeezing a peach or two in my time.

“And I understand that people want to touch the peaches,” Dinges assured us, “but do they have to touch their nose with them?”

“You mean,” I asked, “they actually lift the peach to their nose and make contact between nose and fruit?”

Dinges, with a disgusted expression, confirmed that people did just that.

Perhaps people feel they have to touch the peach hairs with their nose hairs to see if it’s ready to eat.

Maybe they can tell by smell if the peach is mealy or not.

Whatever. It’s revolting.

So, please do not wipe your nose on the peaches for Dinges’ sake, for all our sakes, including your own, because if everyone’s doing it, you could end up eating a peach that someone else used as a kind of handkerchief. Gross right? So stop it already!

Fair enough. Is it cool that a migrant worker, likely from Central Mexico, with very limited (at best) access to sanitary facilities touches the peaches when she or he picks them? Wash yer peaches.


"Michigan attracts about 90,000 migrant workers each year, yet the capacity for all farmer-provided housing is about 22,000, according to the state department of agriculture."

Read more: http://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/x71 ... z2ajkKd3FD

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdard ... 9724_7.pdf

PS, to be clear, neither situation is cool.

Well, no, but why is the worker's country of origin important? Or the fact that the worker is a migrant?

We actually dropped these peaches in boiling water before skinning, then we froze them, so I think we're safe.

David Hammond wrote:Well, no, but why is the worker's country of origin important? Or the fact that the worker is a migrant?

Don't you know that them firriners have cooties?

Spoiler:

For the super literal, I'm just kidding.

Some people are just hard of smelling.

David, and Steve, the workers' origin is completely relevant: because they are often undocumented, poor, transient people from Mexico, some folks here think they can get away with treating the migrant workers, quite unfairly and literally, like shit. Sorry if my point was lost or confusing. I don't think it was.

In any case, that was my failed attempt to piggy back off of David's somewhat snarky (in my jaundiced eyes) post conveying a fruit farmer's complaint about his customers into a platform to make a point about migrant worker conditions in the Fruit Belt, where I spend a lot of time and, though less than I'd like, try to help out the local migrant community where I can. My bad. Not mad, just misunderstood over here.

JeffB, I thought the point was that we should wash our fruit, about which, I agree.

Yes. We should wash our fruit. I was riffing a little on the irony that fruit picked by someone very likely lacking/denied basic sanitary conditions might be contaminated because an Oak Parker sniffed the guy's peach. I might have developed the thought a bit more, I know. That's what I am doing now. Peace.

Hi- I will be brief because this is not food related, but most of the people that pick fruit are from Mexico, because most Americans will not do the work. It is hard work. As far as we know, all of our employees are here legally. We do check for papers. Most farmers would love it if as part of immigration reform, Mexicans would be legally allowed to stay in this country for part of the year to work on the farms, and then be required to go back to Mexico when the season is over. We do provide free housing for most of our employees, which is regularly inspected at least once a year. I think it is a state requirement in Michigan that the farmer has to provide a porta john out in the field.

I did not know that Stovers sold seconds. They come to the Evanston market, and I have never seen seconds for sale, but there are usually only maybe five farmers I buy fruit from. I know Keningshof's sell seconds for cheap, but I have not been able to snag any this summer so far. A few times I purchased a large container of ripe or imperfect apricots from them for $2. This summer I have been forced to go their at 8:00am, and maybe if I came later I would find some. I used to go there a lot at noon too, and would get a lot of good bargains, such as fill up a bag for $5, or organic heirloom tomatoes for free.

Please don't squeeze the fruit. Another pet peeve of mine is when people strip the corn before they buy it, and leave half of their stripped corn behind. It is okay to take a peak, but stripping the corn dries it out. It is also okay if the ends of your corn are not perfect, you can always trim off the ends. If corn does not get sprayed it gets wormy. I would rather deal with the worms than the pesticides needed to deter the worms. Late in the season, no matter how much you spray your corn you are going to have worms anyway. Hope this helps, Nancy

Thanks for the info, Nancy. I was not criticizing any particular farmer (regarding the migrant conditions), and it sounds as if you are following the law, which sets a pretty low bar, and go beyond. With 90,000 workers picking fruit and 20,000 farmer-supplied beds, according to the state, conditions obviously are not good for many. Don't many/most go to Florida and Texas after the last crops in Michigan are in? Sorry for taking this in a somewhat different direction, but there is a long and esteemed history of that on LTH

NFriday wrote:I did not know that Stovers sold seconds.

I'm going to hazard that most places at farmers' markets offer seconds -- they pretty much have to. I've bought seconds from four or five places at the OP Farmers' Market. Stovers actually had a very large bin of seconds, of which we took just the twenty. I was actually thinking that it might not be inappropriate to even bargain for volume -- I mean, why not? The vendors need to unload these banged up little guys, which don't look better as the day goes by.

JeffB wrote:Yes. We should wash our fruit. I was riffing a little on the irony that fruit picked by someone very likely lacking/denied basic sanitary conditions might be contaminated because an Oak Parker sniffed the guy's peach. I might have developed the thought a bit more, I know. That's what I am doing now. Peace.

Jeff, that was pretty much my point as well, albeit in a very round about and ultra snarky way.

Nose-to-peach contact, no, I agree, but Russ Parsons, author of How to Pick a Peach, does advocate smelling peaches to help judge their ripeness.

Hi= A lot of the migrant workers go to Texas in the winter time. We have some families that stay on our farm all winter, and find other work though. Where did you get the only 22,000 migrant workers are provided housing? We used to have some drive in help that lived in Benton Harbor, but those people do not want to do this kind of work.

When we used to employ mostly American workers, they would work for us in the summertime, and then they would go to Florida in the winter time to pick citrus.

It is in the article linked in my post, from the Holland paper, and refers to the State's stats.

Hi- The 90,000 is factoring in people that work at greenhouses and nurseries. I don't think most greenhouses and nurseries provide housing. The migrant worker shortage that the article referred to is because of the immigration laws. If they allowed Mexicans to come to this country legally to work in the fields for however long it takes, and return back to Mexico, there would not be a shortage of workers. Even John McCain wants us to revamp the immigration laws to allow that.

There are some people that are against allowing the Mexicans to come into this country legally, because this is taking jobs away from Americans, but most Americans do not want to do this type of work, and especially for what the farmers can afford to pay. I am sure if the farmers could afford to pay $50 an hour, they would get some Americans interested in those type of jobs, but they can't. Thanks, Nancy

Since feeling the peaches has also come up, I have a confession and a question. I am a peach-feeler. I don't know another way to tell if a peach is too ripe, not ripe enough, or just exactly the right amount of ripe for my needs. My needs may vary depending on whether I expect to eat the peach today, tomorrow, or two days from now, but for each of those timetables, a given amount of ripeness/not-ripeness is optimal. Is it really wrong to press the peach lightly in order to determine this? How else can a shopper know if the peaches are for him?

I sniff peaches. If they don't smell like anything I don't buy them. But I don't wipe my nose on them.

Hi- Yes I feel the peaches too. Sniffing them is another way to tell if they are ripe. BTW- I inquired at Stover's last Saturday if they do sell #2 peaches, and the person I spoke to asked the person in charge, who's husband is the patriarch, of the Stover farm, and she looked at me like why are you so cheap? She said that they did have some #2 peaches earlier in the morning, but it sounds like they did not have that many, and BTW anybody that sold red haven peaches last week I am 99% sure that they were not red haven. There are several growers that sell peaches at the Evanston market, who are notorious for telling people that they have red havens when they don't. Once late in the season, I got there late, and there was only one grower that had peaches left to sell, and the sign said red haven. I knew they weren't red haven, and I asked them what kind of peaches they were, and the person said red haven. I told them that no way could they be red haven, and the farmer came over, and when I told him who I was, he told me that they were my sister's Fayette peaches. There should be a few red haven peaches this weekend, but not a lot. One of the growers told me last Saturday, that he should have some Allstar peaches this Saturday, which is one of my sister's variates, and is also really good.

Some of the growers will give you a free sample if you ask too. My other sister lives in New Orleans though, and told me that there is one peach growers that comes to the downtown market on Saturdays from Alabama. A few years ago she asked him if she could have a sample, and he said that she was the first person to ask for a sample in all the 23 years he had been coming there. She told him that she grew up on a peach farm, and she was particular about her peaches. He finally gave her a sample, and she discovered that the peaches weren't good, and he was charging $7 for a quart of peaches. She decided to pass on them.. Hope this helps, Nancy

I just returned from a road trip to the land of peaches (among other places; larger post to come). One day, I found myself at the Nashville Farmers Market, where there was an incredible bounty of South Carolina peaches, the finest peaches available in the USA (take that, you Georgian pretenders!).

One of Many Peach Displays at the Nashville Farmers Market


Because peach culture is so prevalent in the region, they have solved the nose wiping problem by offering this plethora of cleaning products, guaranteed to keep your peaches clean and hygienic.

Peach Cleaning Supplies


I think Mr. Hammond should carry such a kit with him at all times. Not only are these products effective against peach sniffers, but I would imagine they would also work to help eliminate the pesky finger licking problem, too.

Those labels are marketing genius.

Funniest thing I've seen in a long time!

Among the many great things about Montréal's Marché Jean-Talon is that the fruit and veg stands inevitably have slices of their offerings dished up for everyone to try. You *could* get your daily veg portion if you walked down all the aisles! I've bought lots of produce unexpectedly after tasting the growers' samples.

Geo

I smell all my fruit. I do not make contact, but it is the only way to really tell what is happening with fruit. People give me dirty looks, I just ignore them.

I guess I'm even worse: when I'm considering cantaloupes in the market, I always scratch the stem scar to see how ripe it smells. An old fruit merchant taught me that. It's reasonably reliable. But I suppose it's a no-no.

Geo

,Hi- U don't know if this is the correct place to put this post. I was at the Evanston farmer's market around noon today. Hillside Church, which is located in the NW side of Evanston on Crawford, operates a food pantry out of their church, I believe you can pick up food on Wednesdays and Saturdays. On Saturdays a group of volunteers from the food pantry hit the Evanston farmer's market for donations. This is food that used to be thrown away before they started showing up. They make it really easy for the grower and they show up shortly after noon, and they patiently wait until the grower says it is okay to take whatever he is willing to donate.

I know that one of the growers from Michigan gives them tons of stuff every week including corn, tomatoes, and other stuff. As I was walking around the market today, I saw somebody throwing away a whole tray full of apricots in the trash. I checked to see who he worked for. I then noticed that the people from the food pantry were patiently waiting for donations, and I approached them, and asked them if they had approached this particular grower about donations, and somebody told me that when they asked her if she was willing to donate any of her leftover stuff, she replied that she took all her leftovers home with her, and never had anything to donate. This just irks me that she would rather throw the stuff away, than save it for the food pantry. One week before the food pantry existed, I saw this grower throw away some flowers. Somebody grabbed a bunch of them to take home, and this grower was incensed that the person did not pay her for those flowers. Thanks, Nancy

Oak Park peach caper continues as more residents come forward with tales of pillaged trees
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyle ... story.html

Re: Stolen Peaches: by next year I would have installed:

1. Nets and low electric fence, to keep 4-footed and wingéd critters away;

2. Motion detector connected to an alarm; and

3. A game/trail camera to protect against featherless bipedal critters.

I've grown grapes for 45 years and it's hard business. No way I'd let critters--human or otherwise--ruin my hard-earned harvest.

Geo