David ‘Mas’ Masumoto and his Suncrest Peaches, yes I know him well. Talking Baseball, another of Mas' passions and the time just flutters away all the while with a smile on our faces. The good old times we've shared. I know what Mas means from my being raised for the first 13 years in San Pedro, County of Los Angeles, yet most of my family members were involved with farming in some way. Only two of us 30 some odd "cousins" are actively farming today. Just the other day I was wondering if the fields where we used to buy snap beans between San Pedro and Marineland were still there. I remember my parents buying the beans and before we left the sand strip in front of the small shack where the fields almost touched the ocean we would be eating the beans raw and loving every second of it. It was amazing how sweet they were and no Sugar Pea I've tasted can match them for sweetness. Up on the hills above the ocean between Marineland and the old Portuguese Bend there were many fields of Garbanzo Beans grown in which what impressed me when I was young was that the fields were protected by armed guards. Those Beans were considered by many to be the very best in the world and were exported directly to Italy. No where else got a taste of them. I've often wondered what those Garbanzos might have tasted like. We moved to Merced whereby one of the best friends of the family lived very close to the late John Anderson. John was a Peach and Nectarine breeder extraordinaire. There are quite a few Stone Fruits with John's name on them. I have two of his seedlings that I would not trade for any Peach. One seed from one of his fresh eating Peaches came out true. The other oddly enough was a fresh Nectarine seed that produced our Clingstone Peach that no Cling Peach can touch for flavor in my mind. At least with Peaches I can live the best of the past every year but others are not so fortunate. When people come out here from New York and we see the looks on their faces the instant they bite into a tree ripe Red Jim Nectarine and make the comment that they've never tasted anything so good, it is tough for us to mention that Nectarines are shipped to New York but that variety, tree ripe, is not one of them. Our Red Jim's are shipped to Japan but they are not nearly as good as the tree ripe ones we keep for a few people's fruit stands near Reedley. Once tree ripe we look at that Nectarine as having a shelf life of 3 days. On one hand we talk of progress in Agriculture but we have not developed Fruits and Vegetables that are as good as they were in the past 30 years or so. The Red Delicious Apple is just a caricature of its old self. What happened to the sweetness, the firmness of the flesh and the flavor of the Apple? The old Ace Tomato or the old Beefsteak are two more examples of what was and what is now. We want good shipper fruit but at what price have we sold our collective souls just to make a living? Those of us that know how good the fruit and vegetables used to be and know what we are selling today have to shake our heads in disgust. Oh, if we can only sell our crops locally, then we may be a little poorer but we'd be much happier people and we would instill the old pride we used to have in saying to others anywhere that we still grow the best fruit and vegetables in the world right here. Thanks guys for sharing this weblog. You picked a wonderful man and subject to write about. Best regards, Jim
