Even summer's sexiest fruits can at times underwhelm

But pickling (RECIPE below) gives them new life and endless versatility

I am unabashedly obsessed with fruit, a fragile, fleeting luxury of summer. I prefer my fruit seasonal and grown locally. This allows for fruit to be picked ripe since it doesn’t need to survive a long journey. Because I don’t eat trans-hemispheric fruit, I eagerly (impatiently) await for the first stone fruits (my favorite!) to hit the market. It doesn’t help that I have to watch my friends and family in the deep South relishing them for weeks, if not months, before they appear in Philadelphia. Finally, cherries, peaches, nectarines, plums, and apricots all arrived at my farmers’ markets in recent weeks.

The first east coast peaches I saw were at my local co-op, but they had no fragrance. A tell tale sign of the disappointment to come. But they were saturated in the colors of a sultry July sunset, and I couldn’t resist. That’s the thing about fruit. Even practicalists like me are constantly chasing our most ethereal encounters. In reality, most of what is available on grocery store shelves tastes more like a cotton ball than the pulsating, nectar-drenched flesh of memory.

Fruit in the marketplace has gotten so bad that we are losing our collective knowledge of what the best fruit even tastes like. My dear friend, the award-winning cookbook author Ronni Lundy, once told me when she worked at the Asheville, NC, Trader Joe’s, she’d had to explain to her fellow crew members that “crisp” was not a favorable description for peaches. A slight improvement to cottony perhaps, but a shadow of the peach’s ideal succulence.

Those first peaches from my co-op started as crisp as a firm pear and resisted ripening, going spongy instead. I decided to mix up a quick sweet and tangy pickle brine to inject brightness and flavor into the remaining peaches before it was too late.

Pickling fruit might seem like a novel idea, but it’s a long practiced tradition around the world. Pickled peaches and watermelon rinds have long been specialties of the the American South (even Dolly makes pickled peaches!) and, I’m learning, the Pennsylvania Dutch as well. Pickling has been a popular way of preserving fruit and enlivening cuisines through the harsh winters of Northern Europe and Russia for centuries.

After 2 days in the brine, my lackluster peaches were transformed into juicy, flavor bombs bursting with vibrant acidity and sweetness. Now that they were under brine, I no longer had to worry that they would rot or over ripen if I took my eyes off them for one second. I loved their newfound versatility in kitchen and started tossing them into all sorts of salads, on top of crostini with oozing burrata, directly into my container of cottage cheese and yogurt, or on cheese and charcuterie boards. (Seriously, do not miss a chance to pair them with chicken liver paté.)

Unless you add garlic or onion to your pickle brine, pickled fruit can contribute a brilliant, unexpected punch to desserts as well. I recalled Bill Smith’s delightful Pickled Peach Ice Cream, made with Farmer’s Daughter Pickled Peaches, at (now shuttered) Crook’s Corner.

But I enjoyed them most tossed with leftover grilled chicken, red onions, basil, mint, and torn burrata for this absolutely magnificent salad full of all of my favorite high summer flavors. Eating fruit at every meal takes full advantage of the season!

The perfect picnic salad of leftover grilled or barbecue chicken, pickled peaches, Bulgarian feta, red onion, and basil.

And don’t stop with peaches! Cherries, plums and apricots all shine when pickled. Whatever you do, be sure to combine any leftover brine with oil and a little shallot for a vibrant and fruity vinaigrette. Or whisk it into soda water for a fruity “drinking vinegar.”

Pickled cherries added to a roasted beet salad with feta (try gorganzola dulce in place of the feta!), red onions, and Lolla Rossa lettuce from my garden.

The Recipes

A mini pickled peach tart with whipped feta