Sweet, sweet deception...

Ah, midsummer. Is there a more tasty time of year? I speak specifically at this moment to seasonal stone fruits… cherries, peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, and all their luscious, juicy, drip-down-your-arm-with-honey-sweetness variant friends.

In “The Botany of Desire,” Dr. Michael Pollan argues that these plants (he uses the apple by way of example) manipulate us in an “intimately reciprocal relationship” by playing off our inborn desire for sugar. (Cravings for sweetness are hotwired in our systems at birth. A yen for salt shows up a few months later.) In return, we’re supposed to propagate the plants. Not a bad trade-off.

As much as I detest feeling manipulated, I can’t argue with the methods employed by the peach.