Seconds, those fruits and vegetables judged imperfect and not suitable to display in a store, are huge money-savers for our family. I’ve been ordering boxes of seconds at our local farm for years now, and each time I open one I think something is terribly wrong if food such as this is deemed less valuable than the uniform, lifeless peaches I see in the produce section of our local grocery store.
The peach in the photo above is one of the ‘worst’ I could find in the 66 pounds of peaches I peeled and sliced this past weekend. As you can see, it just barely fit in my hand. It was perfectly ripe, juicy and fragrant. But, yes, it had a hole in it.
The vast majority of the peaches had no holes, just warts or dimples or scars on their skin. A small few had a surface bruise. Only one had to be composted unused.
My 66 pounds of imperfect fruit was transformed to 36 pints of absolutely perfect habanero peach preserves. You won’t find that displayed on the shelf at your local grocery store, either.
Another Roadside Attraction 