Apricots
With their special combination of sweetness and tartness, locally grown highly aromatic apricots are my go-to stone fruit before the showier and more varied summer fruits take over. Starring on farmer’s market shelves for a woefully short run, these pleasures of late spring are not to be missed. Getting their name from praecocium, Latin for precocious, these early ripening fruits are grown in a wide temperate band from Turkey to southern Europe and from North Africa to California. Related to the plum, peach, cherry and almond, the apricot is thought to have been first cultivated in China more than 4000 years ago. Often picked underripe when their sweetness and aroma are barely expressed, apricots are best eaten out of hand or made into homey crumbles, jams, mousses, ice creams or sorbets, on the day you buy them as their flavor tends to decline quickly.
