Another term that needs definition is ethylene gas. Ethylene gas, known as the “death” or “ripening” hormone, is an organic compound that is naturally produced by fruit. It promotes fruit ripening. Each fruit produces ethylene in different concentrations and quantities, with apples as the champion producers.
Suppliers introduce ethylene gas into a fruit’s environment, often called a ripening room, to increase the rate of ripening. Processors can also purge or remove the gas to slow the ripening process. Your winter tomatoes are picked green, then gassed. As an experiment, buy a green tomato and an apple. Scrub the apple skin to remove the wax so it can breathe, then put the apple and tomato in a paper bag. The tomato ripens over a few days’ time! Ethylene gas is the key player.
According to the Chilean Fresh Fruit Commission, we import around 30,000 tons of peaches yearly, most destined for your table. The Chilean peach-growing season lasts from December through March. Shipping is usually by boat, as the name suggests. At the shipping point, and again at the destination, fruit is graded for US export by US Department of Agriculture (USDA)-trained inspectors as either US Fancy (the best), US Extra Number 1, US Number 1 or US Number 2. The grading standards can be found in a very dry publication called United States Standards for Grades of Peaches, which is published by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Services.
A local grocer who buys only US Fancy says that he has been purchasing produce for over 30 years, and stopped buying peaches and nectarines from Chile because “They pick for shipping and not for taste anymore; why buy it if you throw away half of it anyway?” My contact at A & J Produce in Hunts Point begs to differ. If there is a problem, it comes from grocer or trucker mishandling; the product hits the produce company docks in perfect condition, he assures me. He then describes in almost artistic terms how the Chilean shippers now handle their export fruit.
The Chilean Agricultural shippers have “ripening while shipping” down to an art – an art that requires a great amount of detailed science, based on years of experience, research and trial-and-error. The first fruits harvested are shipped by air. Air shipping costs more, but the fruit is tree-ripened and perfect, and it only takes two days to get from the field in Chile to the US warehouse. As the Chilean season progresses from December to March, perfect tree-ripened fruit remains in the Chilean domestic market. Fruit for export (that’s us) is picked at various stages of ripeness and maturity, with plans for gas-ripening.
Once packed, the fruit is loaded into high-tech containers, and then onto ships for the three-week boat ride to the port of New Jersey or New York. So how do the exporters and importers make sure that the fruit is at its peak? That is where the science comes into play. The high-tech shipping containers are designed to deliver the fruit in perfect condition. Oxygen is purged from the container and then the container is chilled, depending on the type of fruit. “Yeah, it’s kinda like putting them in a coma,” my A & J source said. When the fruit nears the port they are “awakened” by reintroducing heat, oxygen and ethylene gas. So when the distributor receives the peaches, they are perfect, ripened and ready to sell. But how do they taste? That is the heart of the matter.
So go back to the tree-ripened peach eaten at Minnewaska back in the summer. Why is the taste different? Remember how Dr. Clark mentioned the physiologic point of reference in the lifespan of the fruit? What happens when it reaches that point of reference: mature? At the point of maturity, ripeness is achieved naturally. The fruits produce vitamins and minerals. The meat has the perfect amount of solids. The Brix (a measurement of total solids) is exactly perfect.
Once you pick a peach, the sugar production stops. To be perfect, a fruit must be both ripe and mature. It absolutely must reach the point in its lifespan where all the appropriate amounts of sugars, water and solids appear and come together naturally. No amount of ethylene gas can compete with that. And that, my friends, is why a local peach in midsummer will always trump a gas-flushed peach, anywhere, anytime, organic or non-organic, despite technology and the best-synchronized timing of producers, exporters, shippers and retailers.
As for me, I will wait for July. Until next time.
Read more about local cuisine and learn about new restaurants on Ulster Publishing’s dinehudsonvalley.com or hudsonvalleyalmanacweekly.com.
