This website is published through the courtesy of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Any opinions expressed, however, are totally my responsibility.

Jim Andris, Sept. 17, 2003.

Mom's Fruit Shortcake for Twelve

Ingredients

12 Midwest or Southern Peaches, ripe
1 box Bisquick
Sugar
Milk
Butter
Heavy cream, whipped

Easy Directions

Pit, peel and slice the peaches.

Make shortcake for twelve from the recipe on a Bisquick box.

Number

Serves 12 people dessert after a good dinner, 6 people who want to gorge themselves on dessert.

Detailed Directions and a Rant

The Peaches, how to get good ones

First, let me rant about the frankly irritating things we find in Midwest and Eastern supermarkets that are called peaches. They're from California. Once in a while I buy a couple and I am always disappointed. They have been picked almost green and shipped across the country in refrigerated trucks. They are more often than not pithy, or almost inedible. Of course, if you cook them with sugar, you may not notice much of a difference. But, do any of you remember taking a freshly ripe Illinois peach in season (July 4-September 1) and just eating this excruciatingly delicious thing, juice dribbling down your chin, right off a tree or out of a roadside market basket? Nothing can compare to it. Unless, of course, you happen to eat a California peach, properly ripened, in California. Now those are pretty good.

The rant continues: This is an example of how marketing in this country sucks. Why do we have California peaches across the country all months of the year? Because the marketing system in this country has convinced us that we need peaches on demand. Local midwest farmers will tell you that it is almost impossible to get their delicious peaches into midwestern supermarkets, especially chains, even right in the middle of peach season.

The only solution I know of: Don't eat peaches October through June if you live in the midwest. Eat other fruit then. Eat apples and pears in the fall. Eat bananas and oranges in the winter. Then, go out to the local farmers market at least once a week for two months and eat your fill of delicious, healthy, properly ripened local peaches in middle to late summer.

You think I'm going excessive here, but in addition to the disgusting taste, these picked-green, too-long-trucked-and-refrigerated peaches from California are almost worthless as a food. Why? Because you have to properly ripen a fruit to maximize the phytochemicals in it, the anti-oxidants and so forth. Read up on this, and you will find that I am telling you the truth.

The Good Peaches: how to properly prepare them

• Buy a big bag of them at your local farmers market, or if luck would have it, if you see them in your supermarket. Buy them 2-4 days before you plan to use them.
• Don't put them in the refrigerator. This stops the ripening process. Put them in a bowl together. Check them every day, and eat the ones that are becoming ripe.
• On the day of your dinner party, select twelve ripe peaches from your bowl. (They should not have become too ripe. Ripe is when you can dent the flesh by pressing, but they are still basically firm.)
• You will see a seam that runs around a peach. Take a paring knife and slice through that seam to the pit all the way round the peach.
• Now put down the knife and with both hands, gently twist back and forth until the peach pops open. If they are exactly ripe, and you do this right, you will not bruise the peach, but one of the halves will have the pit clinging to it.
• Using your fingernail, pull gently on the pit until it dislodges. You may have to pry in a couple of places. It takes practice to get this right.
• Next, peel a very thin layer of skin from the two halves. If the peaches are exactly ripe, you will be able to almost peel all the skin right off without taking any of the flesh.
• Put the peeled and pitted peaches one by one into a large bowl.
• Next, put each peach half cut side down on a chopping board, and quickly and deftly slice them into about 8 even pieces. With practice, you should be able to do a peach half in less than 10 seconds, or three peaches a minute.
• When all the peaches are sliced, measure a half cup of sugar, and mix into it about 1/2 tsp. of ground cinnamon and a pinch of ground cloves.
• Toss the sugar and spice mixture and peaches gently but well and refrigerate.

The Bisquick shortcake

Let's start by admitting that too much of this is not good for you. It contains white flour and hydrogenated fat. If you want to substitute for this shortcake one made of wholewheat flour and non-hydrogenated vegetable oil, you are being very smart. I checked on the web and there are many recipes for this (whole wheat shortcake, whole wheat shortbread).

But if you want to eat shortcake like your mommie used to make (which is what I'm talking about here), then you got to eat the bad stuff once and a while.