The Peach

“You can taste one, you know.” I was at a meeting at CVS Headquarters, milling around, when a young lady came up beside me and said that. I was newly hired as a sous chef for the St. Andrew’s School in Barrington. Having never worked for a food service contractor before, never mind a huge one like the Compass Group (the largest food ser­vice employer in the world, with over a million employees), I didn’t really know much about this Compass Community Council meeting. Just that I was required to attend, and that I didn’t know anybody.

The dining center at CVS was huge and bright and cheerful, all glass and win­dows, with chrome tables that had artfully brushed circles etched into them, and tall metallic stools that shouted of “design.” Chefs and executives greeted each other warmly, shaking hands, patting each other on the back. People mingled, chatting enthusi­astically, while sipping New Age drinks and noshing fancy appetizers. I looked on, alienated, trying to look interested, yet feeling like I didn’t belong.

In fact, working with school food had me wondering what I’d gotten myself into. Although the company I worked for, Flik, portrayed itself as upscale, it was difficult to overcome the attitudes of a bunch of middle- and high-schoolers. I wanted to give them fresh fruit and vegetables; they wanted pizza and chicken nuggets. I cooked handmade burri­tos, they loved their Taco Bell. It was frustrating. As modern and progressive as this corporate cafeteria was, the dining hall at St. Andrew’s was equally dark, backwards, and old-fashioned; and the appeal of really good home-style food was much less than I imagined. I sighed and turned toward a huge exhibit of gourmet foods.

Now here was something I could get into: a long table, set up by Sid Wainer and Sons of New Bedford, well known purveyors of quality produce. I was familiar with them from other places I’d worked, and this was a spectacular display of just about everything they sold. There were piles of beans, all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Mounds of grains: rices, couscous, spelt, quinoa, wheat berries, and more. Silvery anchovies, grilled artichokes, and tiny roasted onions in oil. Spices of every description, and a few I’d never heard of: grains of paradise, fennel pollen, annatto. Flavored honeys in every shade of gold, lined up like soldiers in their short square jars, along side of preserves, chutneys, oils, smoked salmon, mustard, and balsamic vinegars.

Further down were the fruits and vegetables. Some of the eggplants were deep purple; others were white brushed delicately with amethyst. Bell peppers piled in a riot of colors: red, of course, plus yellow, orange, green, and even black. Berries in baskets, apples, citrus, apricots, and…peaches, stacked high but neatly way at the end, drawing me to them. These were special. Actually, they were perfect; they looked too good to be true. I paused next to them, trying to decide if they were real, when the lady came to me and said, “You can taste one, you know.” Apparently she’d seen the look of bemusement on my face.

“May I?” I asked, surprised out of my reverie.

“Of course,” she said, beckoning toward them.

I reached out and grabbed the one on top, and got a palpable jolt: It’s alive! Indeed this was no cold, hard supermarket peach– it was warm and vital. Touching this fruit was like touching flesh: a baby’s cheek, or a lover’s breast. The unexpectedness of it was shocking.

The skin was the softest velvet. I lifted its heft towards my mouth and relished a brief whiff of its perfume. The fruit itself was neither soft nor firm, and yielded an exquisite nectar that was simultaneously sweet, tangy, floral, and extraordinarily peachy. I devoured it unabashedly, with juice eventually running down my chin and forearm. Then I had to excuse myself and grab a handful of napkins from a nearby table.

In a way, I reasoned, it was a damn shame. For weeks, I’d been hearing about what foods the kids liked, and much more about what they didn’t like: I don’t like broccoli. I don’t like salad. I don’t like whole wheat bread… I don’t like peas, or squash, or carrots. I don’t like apples, oranges, or bananas, unless they’re not too brown. But how could any child possibly not like fruit such as this, so sweet and ripe, a product of the earth and sun, the air and rain? And not merely as a food that’s “good for you,” but as something to be savored, even treasured? I could only conclude that they never had such a thing.

It was right then I decided to bring it to them. An old proverb says, give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and then he’ll eat for a lifetime. But who will teach what that fish is supposed to be? I will. It’s a lesson I’ll be teaching, and learning, for the rest of my life.