I did a double take on my way into the farmers’ market. The small orange fruit with blushing cheeks caught my eye.
“Are they Blenheims?” I asked, holding the golf ball of an apricot in my palm.
“No,” said the woman behind the table. From the tone of her voice (not quite snippy) it was clear she was tired of this question. “The Blenheim is only one of 150 varieties of apricot,” she said and proceeded to tell me the name of the breed of hers, and how it was far better than the hard, tasteless fruit found at supermarkets. I popped a large sample slice in my mouth as I politely nodded and listened. The flesh was pleasant, but not particularly sweet or juicy. It was not what I was looking for.
Read my musings on apricots, Meyer lemons, and the precarious idea of taking trees from one continent and planting them on another, part of a special series on migration and food at the San Francisco Chronicle.