the first of the season...

This sure is one country obsessed with FIRST everything...it is said that Japan is the land of 'one chance' and if you fail, that's the end of that. The beginning of anything is very special - the beginning of the New Year, work season, school season, food, weather season, and so on. I suppose this is true for other countries but this habit of 'firsts' is dramatically underlined and in bold here.

This was not my first peach of the season, but it is a kind of hatsumono (a first) in the sense that it is just the beginning (not even) of the peach season. Sometimes I offered friends watermelon or cherries and you could see the glee in their eyes...knowingly, I grinned and asked them if it was their 'first time' to have it this year. 9 times out of 10, it was.

White peaches are the norm here and all peaches as well as nectarines are eaten with the skin removed. My mom always warned me peach skin fuzz would give me a bad stomachache. As a good child would, I bit into the peach - skin, fuzz, and all. Ha ha. Terrible child I was and still am! Do you eat peaches a la fuzzy style? I like crunchy peaches, almost impossible to find here...but if you are lucky enough to have a peach farmer friend, you just might get lucky!