aaron asked: “If you saw peach ice cream on a menu in January and after inquiring learned that puree had been frozen for 5 months to make it, would you be happy? Satisfied? Would you order it?”

Those are tough questions that are not easy to answer. I try to eat seasonally and locally, so seeing peach ice cream on a menu in January would be a bit jarring. But since I also appreciate the craft of food preserving as a way of building a local food network, it would be OK if they were local peaches.

My reaction would also depend on how the ice cream was used. If the menu item was simply a bowl of peach ice cream, then I wouldn’t order it. If the ice cream is served as an accent to a cake, pie or custard made with seasonal fruit (e.g., citrus), it could be an exciting bit of season-mixing that would attract my attention.

The fact that the peach puree sat in the freezer for a few months probably wouldn’t bother me.

These are interesting questions, thank you. It’s good to see Aaron has a question for you regarding pastry chefs & preserving because he and I have had this argument going for a while!

I have known only a few pastry chefs with enough freezer space for doing massive fruit preparation when fruit’s in season and there’s too much of it to use in the moment. Mostly we don’t have the staff, the time or the equipment to make this happen.

And, as Aaron’s questions point out, it would be difficult to explain to a diner on a menu why they were getting fruit out of season.

Jamming appears the best way to preserve for later on in the year, although if I had the choice I would be poaching and keeping the coulis and its poaching liquid frozen for many purposes later.

Dad & Ellen,

Thanks for the good words. Although I fear y’all are quite biased!

Monkey Wrangler,

You are very welcome! The pleasure is all mine. Especially if the pleasure produces your famous English muffins!

And I too would love to know your thoughts on preserving peaches, especially freezing because we just got one for the garage.

Dad & Ellen