The Perfect Fruit Inspires Desserts and a Celebration of Farmers

There is probably no restaurateur in America who has done more for the farmers market movement than Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse. From the day the restaurant opened its doors 30 years ago--five years before the law that created the California certified farmers market program--its soul has been the kind of simple, transparent cooking that can only work with the very best ingredients.

Waters has always been quick to share the credit for her restaurant’s success with the farmers who supply her. That reaches a kind of fever pitch with “Chez Panisse Fruit” (HarperCollins, $34.95), virtually a paean to the life pastoral.

“The perfect dessert ... is a perfect piece of fruit, and the most perfect fruit has to be a perfect peach,” she writes. That basically sums up the book’s many pleasures as well as its few problems.

On the plus side is the encyclopedic background information she presents on fruits both common and exotic. Waters’ books (and her restaurants) are collaborative affairs and a good part of the credit for “Fruit” goes to Alan Tangren, now Chez Panisse’s pastry chef, but for many years its chief forager. The information on how to choose various fruits--what varieties are best and when to expect them, who grows them and where--is particularly valuable.

Blenheim apricots, Meyer lemons and California farmers Ernie Bierwagen and Todd Kennedy are the stars of this book, every bit as much as the chefs.

And, as always with the Chez Panisse books, a pure aesthetic shines through the recipes. There is not an instance of contrivance, and there are several interesting ideas that I can’t wait to try out in my own kitchen (rose geranium-scented syrup as a fruit sauce ... mmmm). And I’m already searching for the 120 peach leaves that are needed to make the exquisite-sounding Vin de Peche (they’re combined with a bottle of red wine, two cups of sugar and a half-cup of Cognac).

But there are a few problems as well. One is the repeated use of the word “organic” as if it were synonymous with quality. Although choosing organic produce may be correct politically and environmentally, repeated taste tests have shown it is of questionable flavor value. Indeed, there are many high-quality small producers for whom the responsible use of chemicals is not only an aid but a necessity.

There are assorted minor quibbles as well: The gibberellic acid used on grapes is not a “synthetic growth hormone”; despite Mas Masumoto’s evocative “Epitaph for a Peach,” the Sun Crest is generally not considered the paragon of peach-dom; and the discussion of organic papaya-growing verges on the Talmudic.

Somewhat more problematic are the recipes. Simply put, when fruit is the star of a dessert, there are only so many treatments possible. Call it a tart, a galette or a crostata, it still gets a little repetitive, one after another. And how many recipes do you need for sherbets and jams before you get the general idea of how to make them?

These shortcomings are nothing major. Look at them as you the would wormholes in an organic apple--annoying to the fastidious, but hardly fatal.

For the most part, Waters’ heart (and palate) are in the right place: She starts every cookbook, she writes, by opening the windows, flailing her arms and screaming, “Pay attention to what you’re eating!” Even the pickiest critic would have a hard time arguing with that.