Shannon Hayes

Never underestimate a gift of home-canned peaches, for your giver has bestowed upon you a token of sincere devotion and love. The home-canned peach is rare. The toil and dedication of years of grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers, and daughters and sons - each generation teaching the next how to tend the trees, to judge the perfect moment of ripeness, to put up fruit for the winter - make canned peaches as precious as an Indian summer day. Thankfully, I come from a long line of peach canners. My grandparents taught my parents, and they taught me.

My annual canning journey begins each year in late summer with a visit to my favorite grower. David emanates a youthful shyness behind a face worn by years of tough living. He dwells in a trailer in a small town on the New York - Pennsylvania border. He knows my voice, and when I call, he reckons when my peaches will be ready. As the date approaches, I call repeatedly:

"Are they ready yet?"

"Mmm, nope. Not yet."

"Are they ready yet?"

"Mmm, not quite. Try next week."

"Are they ready yet?"

"Mmm, yup."

"Yup" is my cue.

The following day I drive 3 hours out to see him. I pull in his driveway and step out of my car. He pokes his head out the door, nods, disappears; then reappears, carrying a box of peaches. Plucking one lovingly from the top, he offers it to me, his face flushed with pride. I handle it lightly. The flesh is firm, yields slightly, perfectly. I sniff it, nod my head yes, hand him my money, and he silently begins to package the fruit for transport. He lifts each peach from the crate, carefully inspects it, and places it in a cardboard box. If it is slightly damaged or too ripe to travel, he goes to his cooler and finds me another. He won’t allow me to depart with a single piece of fruit that does not meet his standards. I bring the peaches home, and my husband and I spread them out on newspapers in the sun where they finish ripening.

It’s the peaches themselves, not us, that dictate canning time. They must be worked with when they are at their sweetest and juiciest, when they are soft without being mushy, when their flavor is full, and when a single bite yields a mouthful of juices. When that time arrives, we act quickly and begin the long, steamy canning process as night falls and the air grows cool. Our hands and senses must re-familiarize themselves with a series of annual rituals: scrubbing the jars pulled from the damp basement and carefully dropping them in boiling water; stirring, tasting, and adjusting the proportions of the honey syrup; delicately dropping each peach into a bath of boiling water; gingerly removing each one and peeling away the fuzzy skin to reveal the silky tender meat; gliding the naked peach along in one palm as the other hand works quickly with a paring knife to slice slim slippery wedges; and finally, packing the fruit tightly into glass jars, pouring in syrup, tightening lids, and immersing the jars in the canner to cook.

It’s hot in the kitchen, and the sticky sweetness suspends in the air, causing it to cling to our sweaty skin. Our feet ache from standing. Our fingertips are wrinkled from the constant moisture. Now and then we step out to sip a glass of cold water in the crisp evening, pause to smell the new autumn air, and then return to our work. Our job will continue all night.

When daylight returns, our kitchen is a glistening spectacle of golden fruit, ready to be packed away for winter. We box the peaches up and carry them carefully down the basement stairs, keenly aware that we have miraculously captured sweet summer in glass jars, to be savored throughout the winter.

If anything provokes parsimony in us, it’s these peaches. We have to make them last a full twelve months, so only those who truly appreciate the magnificence of summer's bounty-turned-winter's pleasures-are privy to a taste. And in the offering, the grandest of gestures is understood. The gift of peaches means more than simply "I love you," or "I care about you." It says, "I will make summer eternal for you. You are worthy of the fruit made from lessons taught me by generations of family; of the toil of the best farmers; of hours of hard work, damp brows, and steaming hands at two in the morning in late summer." But for the sake of economizing words, it's easier to simply say, "I’ve brought you some peaches."