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By David Mas Masumoto
I liked this book. I first read a snippet of the author's writing on a flight to somewhere; an essay he'd written was in an in-flight magazine, and I liked it. Masumoto is a peach and raisin farmer in the San Joaquin valley of California, and so much of his descriptions remind me of my summers in California. I usually spent a while in a nostalgic fog after reading one of the chapters. That, and craving peaches. Masumoto's goal is to save (economically and maybe literally) the Sun Crest peach variety, which is delicious but not as attractive as more recent varieties. It's a heritage variety. He goes into great detail about being an organic family farmer, a fruit farmer, and all of the contradictions he faces in doing so. I looked up Sun Crest peaches online the other day, to see if I could buy any around here, in a sort of solidarity. The only ones I found online were advertised at over $20 per peach. I don't know if that's just the off season price, but my good gracious, no wonder he has a hard time finding buyers, for that price. But then, he's in California, and I'm in Georgia. I'll just have to find some nice local peaches for myself this summer.
Oh, and Masumoto does not count as another Japanese author that I've read, since he's a third generation Japanese-American. It was kind of funny, though, how many times he reminded the reader that his family had been farmers back in Japan, as well, and that none of them had been samurai.
I liked this book. I first read a snippet of the author's writing on a flight to somewhere; an essay he'd written was in an in-flight magazine, and I liked it. Masumoto is a peach and raisin farmer in the San Joaquin valley of California, and so much of his descriptions remind me of my summers in California. I usually spent a while in a nostalgic fog after reading one of the chapters. That, and craving peaches. Masumoto's goal is to save (economically and maybe literally) the Sun Crest peach variety, which is delicious but not as attractive as more recent varieties. It's a heritage variety. He goes into great detail about being an organic family farmer, a fruit farmer, and all of the contradictions he faces in doing so. I looked up Sun Crest peaches online the other day, to see if I could buy any around here, in a sort of solidarity. The only ones I found online were advertised at over $20 per peach. I don't know if that's just the off season price, but my good gracious, no wonder he has a hard time finding buyers, for that price. But then, he's in California, and I'm in Georgia. I'll just have to find some nice local peaches for myself this summer.
Oh, and Masumoto does not count as another Japanese author that I've read, since he's a third generation Japanese-American. It was kind of funny, though, how many times he reminded the reader that his family had been farmers back in Japan, as well, and that none of them had been samurai.
