Arrgh! That Fuzz!
Written by Gayle
One summer between semesters in college I had just about the worst job in the world. No kidding. In. The. World. My best friend was leisurely working in an air conditioned bank while I slaved away thinning peaches in the sticky, sweaty, heat of an orchard. (But I'm not bitter.) I tried so hard to keep that fuzz from getting into my clothes and on my face and on my arms, but to no avail. (Luckily that job lasted only about a month, but the job afterwards--at the concession counter of a drive-in theater--had its own issues!)
Lots of fruits have to be thinned in order to increase the yield. If the little peaches are left in clusters (how they want to grow), they get crowded. As they grow bigger, they end up just dropping off of the branches because their growth forces them into each other and to pop off of the branch. Or the branches get too heavy and then they break. So poor starving college students (in those days, anyway!) spent the late spring popping the extra little peaches off of the branches, leaving space between each one to grow big and plump.
So you see why I really do prefer nectarines? I get all of the glorious taste of peaches, but without the itchy flashbacks of that sticky, sweaty, summer. Nectarines are really smooth-skinned peaches, not a different fruit, and so they can be used interchangeably in recipes.