The Georgia Peach Culture, Agriculture, and Environment in the American South [Paperback]

This book explores the significance of the peach as a cultural icon and viable commodity in the American South.This historical study shows how the peach emerged as a viable commodity precisely when the South was desperate for an improved reputation. The book joins a renaissance in writing about the food, agriculture, and environment of the American South.This historical study shows how the peach emerged as a viable commodity precisely when the South was desperate for an improved reputation. The book joins a renaissance in writing about the food, agriculture, and environment of the American South.Imprinted on license plates, plastered on billboards, stamped on the tail side of the state quarter, and inscribed on the state map, the peach is easily Georgia's most visible symbol. Yet Prunus persica itself is surprisingly rare in Georgia, and it has never been central to the southern agricultural economy. Why, then, have southerners - and Georgians in particular - clung to the fruit? The Georgia Peach: Culture, Agriculture, and Environment in the American South shows that the peach emerged as a viable commodity at a moment when the South was desperate for a reputation makeover. This agricultural success made the fruit an enduring cultural icon despite the increasing difficulties of growing it. A delectable contribution to the renaissance in food writing, The Georgia Peach will be of great interest to connoisseurs of food, southern, environmental, rural, and agricultural history.1. A wilderness of peach trees; 2. The baron of pears; 3. Elberta, you're a peach; 4. A Connecticut Yankee in King Cotton's court; 5. Rot and glut; 6. Blossoms and hams; 7. Under the trees. Blessed with artistry, modesty, empathy, and discernment, Tom Okie is the perfect guide to a southern landscape where the power of environmental beauty is inspiring as well as oppressive.
Jared Farmer, author of Trees in Paradise: A California History Here is that rare book that delivers a lot more thalc­