Heart Splatter
Heart Splatter
On peaches, trauma, and making something beautiful. Pâte de pêches recipe and audiobooks to listen to while you stir
To think we can eat a sunset, convicted, as we are, to the mud of this earth, knees dark with dirt, hands sticky with essence, to think I too am here in this cleft body, a being split into parts and seamed back together, swollen with desire, hungry for the sun. —From Peach by Dorianne Laux
The peach tree stands against the wall next to the driveway, its branches framing the garage door. It is not a majestic tree, but by midsummer, there is something regal about its appearance. Perhaps it knows it holds the most coveted parcel of dirt in the whole garden, propped up against the southern wall of the house where it can inhale the morning sun and bask in the reflective warmth of the baby blue pavement below. It commands the sunlight, with no competition except for a few clusters of chives and a handful of weeds that the deer keep cropped. Its fruit are as plump and sweet as the prized specimens shipped to the grocery stores from the warmer Okanagan Valley. My grandparents were wise to plant it there and reaped the rewards for many years with sweet jams and enough frozen peach slices for three seasons of fruit salad.
In the summertime, the foliage falls over the door, a green awning with swelling yellow polka dots. The pointy leaves, curved like hawk talons, whisper their greetings every time I open the door. The peaches huddle in bunches like schoolgirls, drinking in the summer heat and blushing pink as their flesh becomes vulnerable to the touch. They are the darlings of the garden, round, soft and cuddly. Flaunting downy coats and painterly splashes of colour, they beg to be caressed and admired, more than to be eaten.
Most years, there are so many fat peaches clinging to its branches that the tree sags in languorous defeat under their weight. Every day they look plumper and more beautiful, round watercolour sunsets enveloped in diaphanous pelts. The tree seems tired, but happy, like a mother holding her newborn child. There comes a point, though, in early August, when the tree can hold on no more to the burden of its progeny. Reluctantly, it lets go.
A peach drops. The haven of warmth that made its magnificence possible becomes the stage for its gruesome ending.
Splat! Its skin rips open. Its flesh splatters onto the pavement. It lies helpless, far from its sisters, deformed, bleeding, putrefying. The tree shudders in relief.
I remember my own fall. When I was on the ground, heart splattered, pieces of me bleeding out and drifting away. I remember the voiceless screams rippling through a body that was no longer fully mine. I remember a thundering rush of emptiness, an aching painlessness, as I lay still at the edge of the night. There was no one there to pick me up and cradle me with reassurance. I was left to flounder in the burden of my ugly existence and of the weight of a body. I was left to plead guilty and inflict punishment commensurate with the depth of my shame. I was left to starve the pestilence out of my body. I would burn every day on a pyre of my own making. I would accept struggle as comfort, suffering as salvation. I would erase myself day by day into exhaustion. I would be a ghost who haunted nothing but herself. I would forget the taste of what I yearned for.
I would hold onto life as tenuously as possible so that if the world decided I was too much of a burden, it would be easy to let go. And fall again. Into boundless silence.
I no longer hang on to life with a paper ribbon. I have found the strength to grip life with both hands. It did not happen overnight, but rather over the course of months and years. It was a different kind of fall—halting, terrifying, and painfully slow—back into myself. I rediscovered the sweetness of peaches, the smell of ripe figs, the warmth of embraces. I started carving my own path through the garden, instead of loitering by the gate. I stroked sage leaves, trimmed vines and dug my hands into the warm soil. There was still so much ugliness in the world, in me. But maybe I had the courage to write beauty back into my story. Maybe I could make something beautiful.
Over the next few days, my August beauties fall down one by one to their cruel fate. I stand helpless as they thud, splatter and ooze. I want to give the peaches in the tree as much time in the sun as possible, to coax out their sweetness and flavour. So I wait, for as long as my heart can stand sacrificing the few for the many. Spurred on by my own wounded heart, I gather the disfigured victims and line them up in the fridge, crushed side up.
When harvest time finally arrives, the pavement in front of the garage door is a crime scene of peach stains and pulp splatters. My fridge is a morgue of maimed corpses in various stages of decay. I gather the invalids, slap on some surgical gloves and start the operation.
Life is precious. Make something beautiful.
Pâte de Pêches (Peach Paste)
Called pâte in French, dulce in Spanish and paste or cheese in English, this family of fruit confections is made by simmering a mixture of fruit pulp and sugar for much longer than jam, resulting in a jelly so dense it that can be cut into slices. If you've been to Spain, you may have tried the popular dulce de membrillo (quince paste), perhaps with cheese and bread or crackers. Variations of this preparation are found throughout Latin America and the Mediterranean. I remember it was ubiquitous on the shelves of grocery stores in Argentina, along with its cousin, dulce de batata, a similar jelly made from sweet potatoes.
Whereas you can make quince paste from just two ingredients (sugar being the second), stone fruits contain very little pectin so I found it necessary to add a thickening agent. I used agar powder because that's what I had on hand, but you could try pectin or starch if that's what you prefer. Just add it in small increments so you don't end up with a brick of unchewable jelly.
This recipe works well with other stone fruits, such as cherries, plums and apricots. Serve it on a cheese platter, or cut it into pieces and roll them in coarse sugar to serve as a sweet snack or dessert.
To make this recipe, you will need a square pan (9-inch or so), a scale and either a food processor or a blender. You will also need a fair bit of time, so make sure you have a good audiobook or podcast lined up (see recommendations below!) The weights in the instruction list don't need to be exact, as long as you follow the ratios.
Ingredients
1 kg peeled and pitted peaches (more or less) 500g sugar (white sugar or cane sugar) 1 tsp agar agar (or other thickening agent, see above)
Lightly grease your square pan and line it with parchment paper.
Peel and pit your peaches if you haven't done so already and weigh the result. You will use this weight to determine the amount of sugar to add later in the recipe.
Purée the peaches in a blender or food processor until smooth, and transfer the purée to a medium saucepan. Turn the heat to medium low.
While the purée is warming up, weigh out half the weight of the peaches in sugar and mix the sugar into the purée.
Keep the mixture at a gentle simmer for an hour or more, stirring occasionally at first, and then more often as the mixture thickens, to keep it from burning.
The goal is to get a paste that solidifies completely at room temperature (like a dense, jammy jello). To test for doneness, pick up a small amount of paste with a teaspoon and place it in the freezer for one minute.
Because peaches and other stone fruit don't contain much pectin, I found it impossible to reach to right consistency without adding a thickener. After an hour and fifteen minutes of stirring, I decided to finish the recipe with agar powder. Simply mix it with a little bit of water and pour it into the saucepan, then allow it to simmer for a few minutes to allow its thickening properties to take effect. I used 1 tsp for 1 kg of peach purée. I recommend adding the agar a 1/2 tsp at a time and using the spoon test described above to check the consistency.
When your mixture is thick enough, pour it into your prepared pan. Give it a little shake or smooth the surface with a silicone spatula, and then let it cool at room temperature.
Peach paste will keep in the fridge for many months.
Food Writing Prompt
Describe wasted, discarded or unwanted food: the apples rotting in the yard, the mouldy yogurt you had to throw away, the wilted romaine leaves, the leftover takeout that overstayed its welcome in the fridge… If you want, Write about your attitude towards these foods. Do you feel disgust, stress, sadness, frustration, indifference? What do these attitudes say about your values?
While you Peel, Chop & Stir
My fridge is perpetually stuffed with all kinds of wonderful fruit in August, and in my frenzied attempts to preserve and use all of it, I end up spending a lot of time in the kitchen, peeling, pitting, chopping and stirring. I like to use these hours of solitude to immerse myself in a good audiobook (links lead to my favourite local indie bookstore, but you can find the audio versions of these titles on Audible).
For becoming a better cook: J Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Food Lab
For a cozy story of belonging: TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea
To inspire you to add more joy to your home and life: Ingrid Fetell Lee’s Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness
To indulge in your K-pop fantasies: Axie Oh’s XOXO