You can see why Adam just had to bite.
Transparents, Second Picking (in my milk pail)
The greatest contribution of Russia to world civilization. The name comes from the transparent skin, if you peel it as finely as you can with a sharp knife.
The things are sour, though. Great for pies and applesauce and juice but for fresh eating, well, Adam, my boy, they’ll make the eyes bug out of your head. When the Okanagan had a fruit processing industry, there was a demand for these beauties. Now, you’re lucky if you find a tree anywhere, and that’s a crying shame, because I can imagine a few hundred acres planted in transparents, with juice and sauce and pies to put all others to shame. Instead, we have fast food service jobs. Can you imagine a civilization [sic] in which flinging burgers in an industrial kitchen smelling of fry grease is preferable to celebrating one of the delights of life on earth? Talk about poverty. Tonight in this house, we had apple crisp with the last five of these, just in time for the first peaches. Apples before peaches. Adam, you should have waited, man (but I’m glad you didn’t.)
Harold, you have just resurrected the summers of my childhood. Transparents were brought round to the cottage by Mr Matthews, in his old blue truck which matched his denim overalls. They smelled and looked lovely, waiting in their basket, until the time came to be transformed into pies and baked in the wood stove’s oven. I never knew they originated in Russia. I haven’t seen any in ages. Too bad.
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Hats off to Mr. Matthews!
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