latest story
Peach Rivalry Becomes War Between the Tastes
By KIM SEVERSON
CLEMSON, S.C.—The South has plenty of rivalries. Auburn and Alabama fight over football dominance. North Carolina and Tennessee battle over barbecue.
And then there is Georgia, which is getting kicked to the curb by South Carolina over the fruit that defines its very identity.
For more than 100 years, since Georgia first began shipping peaches beyond its borders, the state has claimed the fruit as its own.
An image of the peach is on the official state quarter and its license plates. In Atlanta, where a giant peach drops from a downtown building each New Year’s Eve, a driver can get lost among all the streets with variations on the name Peachtree.
But here is the harsh truth: South Carolina has shipped out more than twice as many peaches as Georgia so far this summer. And it has been that way for years.
It gets worse. At the end of July, the University of Georgia will officially close its peach program. The head peach horticulturist left the job a couple of years ago. When budgets tightened recently, university officials decided to simply eliminate the position altogether. (Programs for blueberries and vegetables had to go, too.)
And if that was not enough, last week Georgia’s premier peach farmers had to head across the state line to South Carolina for a regional peach conference.
‘‘Georgia may be the peach state, but we’re the tastier peach state,’’ said Desmond R. Layne, an associate professor at Clemson University and the man who arranged the conference, which included a tasting of 40 varieties of peaches grown in his state.
The Georgia peach farmers, grim-faced beneath their John Deere caps, sat in the auditorium unmoved by the enthusiasm of their South Carolina counterparts. Quantity, they said, cannot replace quality.
‘‘They’re trying to make it up in volume but they can’t best us,’’ said Will McGehee of Pearson Farm, pointing out that South Carolina’s nights are too cool for truly great peaches.
‘‘The key to a good peach is a hot night,’’ Mr. McGehee said. ‘‘What makes it miserable for humans makes it perfect for peaches.’‘
Georgia began its peach dominance as the South rebuilt itself after the Civil War. In the late 1800s, the state began shipping the Elberta—a firm, yellow-fleshed peach named for a farmer’s wife—to New York and other East Coast cities.
But by the 1950s, South Carolina had taken over as the biggest peach-producing state. Now, although quantities have dropped, it ships 90,000 tons a year compared with Georgia’s 40,000 tons, according to United States Department of Agriculture statistics. (New Jersey follows with 32,000 tons.)
Georgia peach farmers have been fighting back, focusing on what they argue is a superior flavor that can come only from the unique mix of heat and red clay soil in their state.
They have taken to marketing the Georgia peach as an exclusive and seasonal item. They have even resorted to the mascot, paying someone to dress like a seven-foot peach named ‘‘Big Fuzzy.’‘
The brand appears to have an edge, at least among Internet users. Searches for ‘‘Georgia peaches’’ have outpaced those for ‘‘South Carolina peaches’’ by nearly 20 percent since 2004, said Sandra Heikkinen of Google.
So who really grows the best peach? In this good-natured rivalry, there may be no real way to judge. Plenty of variables determine what makes the kind of peach that drenches your hand and tastes exactly like summer. Rain, heat and soil conditions all play a part, as does the variety planted and the time from the tree to the eater’s mouth.
‘‘I honestly don’t think you can taste a difference,’’ said Josh Tanner, the produce coordinator for Whole Foods stores in the South. ‘‘There is a lot of state pride and that’s what it’s about.’‘
But even Georgia natives have their doubts.
‘‘I am all about the best peach,’’ said DeAnne Hobbs, who lives in North Carolina and grew up in Georgia. Ms. Hobbs was a fan of the Georgia peach until about 2003, when she was living in South Carolina and started eating that state’s fruit. She drives through South Carolina often and always stops for peaches, which is what she did Friday. ‘‘As much as I want to like Georgia’s, I still like these the best,’’ she said.
Even someone working at the Georgia Department of Agriculture had his doubts.
‘‘I understand unofficially that the best and the most tasty peaches are in Spartanburg County in South Carolina,’’ he said, asking that his name not be used because he wants to hold on to his job.
Still, there are plenty of Georgia peach loyalists.
‘‘If you can’t get a Georgia peach, you can settle for a South Carolina peach,’’ said Lucy Brewer, 42, a home cook and writer from Kennesaw, Ga.
On Friday, after she made a cobbler, she drove three hours to Montezuma, Ga., just to get more peaches, a box of now-rare Elbertas.
But like any feuding family, siblings unify when outsiders pose a threat. And in this case, that is California, which dominates the peach market, shipping six times as much fruit as South Carolina and Georgia combined.
‘‘They can grow more peaches and they can grow prettier peaches but they taste like cardboard,’’ said Phillip Rigdon, farm manager at Lane Southern Orchards in Georgia.
Dr. Layne, the peach guru of South Carolina, agreed.
‘‘They just don’t taste like a Southern peach.’’
Kim's Recent Stories
- March 19, 2011New York Times
-
Where Steaming Fried Noodles Spell Relief
Ramen is usually just steps away from hungry diners in most parts of Japan. Often, it’s in the form of flash-fried, pre-seasoned noodles packed into cellophane bags and foam cups. Now instant ramen is being sent by the truckload to the survivors of the Japanese earthquake.
- March 18, 2011New York Times
-
A Tasty Fungus, Stirring Dreams and Lawsuits
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — The two contenders in the great North Carolina truffle wars could not be more different.
Susan Rice Alexander, the showy newcomer, lives by the fifth hole of a golf course and is married to an orthopedic surgeon. Franklin Garland, the eccentric veteran, lives with his wife at the end of a rutted dirt road. - March 18, 2011New York Times
-
Another Role for Buses in Civil Rights History
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Get people talking about civil rights-era buses and it’s all Rosa Parks all the time.
Museums are dedicated to her role in the boycott in the mid-1950s that forced Montgomery to stop banishing African-Americans to the back of city buses. Schools and stamps bear her name. There is a Rosa Parks cookie jar and a Rosa Parks app. - February 17, 2011New York Times
-
Digital Age Is Slow to Arrive in Rural America
COFFEEVILLE, Ala. — After a couple of days in this part of rural Alabama, it is hard to complain about a dropped iPhone call or a Cee Lo video that takes a few seconds too long to load.
The county administrator cannot get broadband at her house. Neither can the sportswriter at The Thomasville Times.
Here in Coffeeville, the only computer many students ever touch is at the high school.
“I’m missing a whole lot,” Justin Bell, 17, said. “I know that.” - February 12, 2011New York Times
-
Trying to Hold Down Blue Language on a Red-Letter Day
CITRONELLE, Ala. — It’s shaping up to be a darn nice Valentine’s Day here in Mobile County.
An optimistic band of middle school students hopes that for just one day no one in the county will curse. Perhaps people can substitute “sugar” or “snap.” Or even the powerful “Oh, pickles!” - January 29, 2011New York Times
-
A Chicken Chain’s Corporate Ethos Is Questioned by Gay Rights Advocates
ATLANTA — The Chick-fil-A sandwich — a hand-breaded chicken breast and a couple of pickles squished into a steamy, white buttered bun — is a staple of some Southern diets and a must-have for people who collect regional food experiences the way some people collect baseball cards.
- January 21, 2011New York Times
-
Traffic Survey Shows Movement in Rankings, if Not on Roads
ATLANTA — Traffic is Atlanta’s Godzilla, a monster of gigantic proportions that seems too big to defeat.
But chalk one up for the underdog. The metropolitan region has moved from having the third-worst congestion in the nation to having the 10th worst, according to a new report from the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. - January 19, 2011New York Times
-
University Provost Is Sued Over Faculty Shootings
ATLANTA — The spouses of two people killed at a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville last year have filed wrongful death lawsuits against the university provost.
- January 15, 2011New York Times
-
For Some Students in the South, a King Day Lacking That ‘Holiday’ Feature
ATLANTA — Put yourself in the shoes of Michael Murray, the associate superintendent of a small school district in the North Carolina foothills.
He has to provide 180 days of education for his 6,000 students by June 10. This past week of unusually brutal ice and snow in the South put the district behind schedule, and he suspects that more snow days are coming. - January 13, 2011New York Times
-
Reporter on Quest to Close 1964 Civil Rights Case
ATLANTA — Stanley Nelson writes for a small weekly newspaper in the Louisiana delta. For the past four years, he has been obsessed with one story: who threw gasoline into a rural shoe repair and dry goods shop in 1964 and started a fire that killed Frank Morris?
No one disputes that the death of Mr. Morris, a well-liked businessman who served both black and white customers, was connected to the Ku Klux Klan. The case is on a list of unsolved civil rights murders the F.B.I. released in February 2007, the day Mr. Nelson first heard of the story.