General Lee Rides Again

I have to say, I had a somewhat disappointing trip to the Pepper Place Market this Saturday. Well, I did thoroughly enjoy being out-of-doors and waddling around the stalls looking for the best produce I could find. I did come away with some summer squash and zucchini (perfect when roasted together with good olive oil and sea salt), some sad little early tomatoes (wishful thinking this early in the season) and some early Springcrest peaches. The reason for my disappointment, I have to admit, stems from the fact that I might never again get to taste a General Lee peach.

One Saturday several years ago, David and I were at the Other Farmer's Market. Do you know the one? The Alabama Truck Growers Market. I've been going there on Saturdays in the summer since I was a toddler. I dare say that most of my summertime baby food started out at the Alabama Truck Growers Market. Savvy hunters of Southern fruit know to steer clear of the shabby little huts at the rear of the market as well as the permanent-looking buildings where you can buy peppers and tomatoes and fruit—all grown in California. Cheap, yes, but most likely rejects from Publix dumped at the commercial docks on the other side of the market. My mother called these fruit-sellers "peddlers" and we never bought fruit from them.

The place to buy watermelon, tomatoes (green and red!), peppers, field-peas, okra, corn and most especially peaches is from the men in overalls sitting in lawn chairs in front of their trucks. There are even little signs hanging over the trucks stating the names of the growers and where they are from. They take pride in their little operations. And indeed, they should.

But back to the day I met General Lee. A very large man (might I even call him downright corpulent?) stood at the rear of an old Ford F250 overloaded with the largest most beautiful white-flesh peaches I've ever seen. When he found me staring mouth-agape at his bounty, he picked one from a basket, drew his pocketknife from his bib pocket and across his arm a few times and sliced one open. He handed it to me warm and most likely from some God-kissed orchard in Chilton County just a few hours earlier. I popped it in my mouth. I think I said something like "This is the most wonderful thing I've ever eaten and I would like another slice arm-hair and all." But what probably came out of my mouth was some kind of guttural and gastronomical noise of satisfaction most likely to originate in the belly of a mating moose. Needless to say, I bought two baskets. They went too fast and I never saw that man again.

Even now, as I wander around the posh stalls of the Pepper Place Market looking for early-season peaches (and waiting with baited breath for the Elbertas surely to emerge later this summer) I can't help but wonder if my experience with General Lee was only a figment of my imagination sprouted from some genetic predisposition to devour fruit and nurtured by too many Alabama summers and too much sun. I'll never know, but the farmer's market will never be the same.