By: Katie Kadue | August 04 2010
Posted in San Francisco Bay Area - Find It - San Francisco

Attention sugar addicts: put down your Tootsie Pops, junk your Jolly Ranchers, and head to your local farmer's market, because there's a new sweet in town. It's the season for peaches, plums, and their close kin, and they seem to get sweeter every year. As recent Dapple Dandy taste tests suggest, after just one bite of a juicy-sweet jewel of a pluot, you'll be converted from candy forever.

Photo: Katie Kadue

Pluots, a mix of apricots and plums (leaning towards the latter; apriums reverse the ratio), are popping up all around the Bay Area this time of year, and with names like Sweet Treat, Flavor Supreme, and Flavor Grenade, these hybrids might seem a bit hubristic.

But the pickings at local farms like Kashiwase and Blossom Bluff have indeed proven supremely sweet – though surprisingly short on flavor. In this fruitophile's opinion, the market's most popular varieties, from Flavorosa to Flavor Finale, boast more sugar content than depth of flavor, and the same goes across the stone-fruit spectrum (especially in white nectarines and peaches).

Photo: Katie Kadue

So while kids and candy-lovers go gaga for Dapple Dandys, others might prefer that their fruit pack a real flavor punch than taste like fruit punch. Those craving more complexity might seek out the subtle tones of heirloom peach varieties, like Red Havens or Elbertas. These cultivars are hardly tart, but they boast delicate richness beneath their sweetness that will reward those nostalgic for the peaches of their parents. As one Oakland farmers market customer confirmed, biting into a ripe Red Haven: "Now this tastes like a peach!"

So whether you think fruit ought to taste like Flavor King pluots or not, set out to sample all your local stone fruit varieties: you're bound to be in for a sweet surprise.

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