The town of Winters was built on apricots. At one point in mid 20th century, most of the farmland for miles around it were planted in apricot orchards. Thousands of people worked in the orchards during harvest season, and hundreds more worked in the various packing sheds in and around town. A portion of the crop was packed for the fresh market, and then loaded onto trains. A spur railroad line carried the crop south to the Sacramento River near Suisun, where they were loaded on ferries and shipped to San Francisco or back east in railcars loaded with ice.
The majority of the apricot crop each year, though, was pitted, cut and laid out on wooden trays in single layers in extensive “drying yards” to slowly cook in the hot sun over a few days. This task was done by hand by thousands more people. Before extensive refrigeration existed, and for decades after, the vast majority of Apricots consumed in the U.S. were dried. Nowadays, the process might be called “solar-powered”, as well as “carbon-neutral” — since transporting dried fruit long distances uses far less energy than fresh.
By the time I arrived in Winters in 1992, though, most of the apricot orchards were gone. The advent of extensive irrigation projects in the San Joaquin Valley had allowed production of fresh market apricots to thrive there, where lower winter rainfall made farming the crop easier. And the dried fruit market had been exported to Turkey, where the cost of labor was fraction of what is was here in California. Most of the orchards were pulled out in the 70s and replaced with almonds, walnuts or prunes — all of which are mechanically harvested.
All of the land that Terra Firma currently farms was in apricots at some point in the past. My first job on the farm was using an ancient bulldozer to uproot 40 year old apricot trees, push them into piles and burn them. Then we had to fill the giant holes where the stumps had been, preparing the fields to plant vegetables. We left a small orchard of about 10 acres that we continued to irrigate, prune and harvest for almost 20 years, but that orchard is now gone too. Before we removed it, though, we took “budwood” from those old apricot trees and used to grow new trees — the ones we are currently harvesting and that are in your boxes today. It’s just an acre, and it is one of the last producing apricot orchards left in Winters.
Apricots are a finicky crop, always difficult to farm but now even harder with climate change. Our small apricot orchard has failed to produce fruit three out of the last five years, and I almost gave up on it several times. Peaches and nectarines are much easier to grow and produce more reliably. They are also far more popular with most Americans as fresh fruit.
For me, though, nothing beats apricots for cooking, whether you’re making jam or a pastry. I find both the flavor and texture of the fruit is better than other stone fruit, which tends to be watery and overly sweet when cooked. The varieties of apricots that we grow, while delicious when eaten raw out of hand, really come alive when subjected to heat. For jam, you don’t even need any pectin as apricots have plenty of their own.
The simplest apricot dessert you can make it is a basic “crumble”. Pit and slice apricots, then toss with a teaspoon of flour and a tablespoon of sugar. Lie them in bottom of a pie pan, then make a topping with a stick of butter, a cup of flour, and half a cup of sugar. Mix it together until it forms loose crumbs, then arrange over the top of the fruit. Bake at 350 until the fruit a bubbly and topping nicely browned.
If you’re looking for a more elegant dessert, I’ve put a recipe up on the website for a rustic tart. It’s not hard to make, but it takes more time and preparation than a crumble.
Our apricot season is short, and will only last another week or two. If you are hoping to make some jam or otherwise preserve this year’s crop, make sure to order some in bulk from the web store.
Thanks,