The gala 2017 Niagara County Peach Festival, a community celebration promising good times for young and old alike, enters its seventh decade from Sept 8-10 at the Academy Park in lovely Lewiston, NY.
Featured events every year, this year being no exception, include the Youth Football, Town and All-Stars Cheerleading Competition, a 5K run through the picturesque village of Lewiston, a Peach Shortcake Eating contest and “Peach Taste-off”, the spectacular Peach Parade, the Peach Fuzz Contest and selection of the 2017 Peach Queen, performances by Elvis impersonator and tribute artist Terry Buchwald, The Tim Britt Band, and Everyday People, a Dance Showcase and, of course, amusement rides and fireworks! The complete day-to-day schedule of events is available at http://www.lewistonpeachfestival.org.
A yellowish-orangey delight, the peach, while unassuming in appearance, will jolt you with its juices and dietary benefits. Sink your teeth into as many as you can possibly stomach, then try it in other forms including the festival’s famous peach shortcake.
The auspicious event of the Erie Canal opening in 1825, bisecting Niagara County from east to west, and the proximity to the temperate breezes of Lake Ontario, giving rise to a local climate conducive to the growing of fruit, combined to make the greater part of Niagara County a verdant, and quite lucrative, orchard for much of the 19th century to the present-day. Fruit from Niagara County, particularly peaches, supplied the entire east coast of the United States, shipped there via “Clinton’s Ditch.”
Fossils with characteristics indistinguishable from those of modern peaches have been recovered from late Pliocene deposits in China, dating to 2.6 million years ago. The peach (Prunus persica) was first domesticated and cultivated there in northwest China, where it was a favorite among kings and emperors, and eventually journeyed to Persia, Europe and finally North America, thought to be brought over by Spanish explorers of the 16th century.
In April 2010, an international consortium, the International Peach Genome Initiative (IPGI), that included researchers from the United States, Italy, Chile, Spain, and France, announced they had sequenced the peach tree genome. Recently, IPGI published the peach genome sequence and related analyses. The peach genome sequence is composed of 227 millions of nucleotides arranged in eight pseudomolecules representing the eight peach chromosomes. In addition, a total of 27,852 protein-coding genes and 28,689 protein-coding transcripts were identified.
In addition to containing significant quantities of Vitamin A, Thiamine (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Niacin (B3), Pantothenic acid (B5), Vitamin B6, Folate (B9) and Vitamins C, E and K, peaches are an excellent source of fiber.
When it comes to the delicious peach, especially those that are grown in and around Lewiston in Niagara County, we are fully in agreement with the ’90’s alternative rock band The Presidents of the United States of America, who sang in their classic 1995 hit “Peaches”:
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
If I had my little way,
I’d eat peaches every day
Sun-soakin’ bulges in the shade
Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free
See you at the Peach Festival!
