The Perfect Fruit: Good Breeding, Bad Seeds and the Hunt for the Elusive Pluot
REVIEWS
"[The Perfect Fruit] is not just about the Zaigers and Pluots -- that would be a bit much for anyone but die-hard fruit geeks -- but a wide-ranging look inside the California stone fruit industry, its breeders, farmers, history and commerce, its controversies and intrigue. His central theme, the struggle to deliver flavorful fruit despite the compromises of industrial growing and marketing, should interest anyone who cares about food." (Full review)
—David Karp, Los Angeles Times
"With great humor, a love of detail and the kind of curiosity that opens one roomful of questions after another, Brantley leads us through the history of plums, the San Joaquin Valley, fruit breeding and the deep connections between food and love."
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
"Part personal narrative, part food world exegisis, 'The Perfect Fruit' recalls David Mas Masumoto's devotion to the peach in 'Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm'... [and] reminds us in some way of Susan Orlean's experiences with orchid collectors in South Florida in 'The Orchid Thief.' Brantley's book... makes agricultural science accessible, helping us realize where some of our best foods come from and the effort involved in producing them." (Full review)
—Christina Eng, San Francisco Chronicle
"In this entertaining account of a growing season in California's San Joaquin Valley, Brantley explains why supermarket shoppers will pass by a pyramid of ripe, juicy plums, peaches and nectarines (PPNs, as they are called) in favor of flavorless Red Delicious apples." (Full review)
—Dan Kois, Washington Post
"This [is] the most interesting book I've read in a long time.... I highly recommend you read this book." (Full review)
—Faith Durand, Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn
"Brantley’s The Perfect Fruit is a must-read book for food lovers, plum obsessives, and any writer that has ever felt alone in the world of struggle. Thanks to Brantley’s research, it becomes clear that one can find artistry in just about any field of work. (Full review)
—Brooke Burton, Food Woolf
"If you want to read a book about a most unlikely subject that will draw you in, much like a piece of perfect fruit, I wholeheartedly recommend The Perfect Fruit... I was a bit skeptical about a whole book on pluots. But it's a book filled with interesting characters, almost dynastic families and the forces of nature. I found it fascinating, I hope you will too." (Full review)
—Amy Sherman, Cooking with Amy
"Brantley’s engaging mixture of agronomy, reportage and food porn... goes down easy." (Full review; scroll down)
—Publishers Weekly
ADVANCE PRAISE
"A classic account of a modern fruit... Even if you've never experienced the pleasure of a perfectly ripe pluot before, you'll get plenty of pleasure from this book."
—Julian Rubinstein, author of Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
"Not interested in fruit breeding? I thought I wasn't. But Chip Brantley brings such passionate curiosity to the subject... that the world of the pluot becomes a whole world, replete with heroes, villains, tragedies, and triumphs."
—Thomas McNamee, author of Alice Waters and Chez Panisse
"Do I dare to eat a peach? Chip Brantley answers Prufrock’s existential question with a belly-satisfying yes. And dare to eat a pluot called Dinosaur Egg or Dapple Dandy, too. Bite into The Perfect Fruit and savor the sweetness and the bitterness, the love and the rivalry, that flows through the food that sustains us."
—D. J. Waldie, author of Holy Land
"This book is a love affair, or rather two: with pluots and the author's wife. Chock full of wonderful, besotted information on plums and other stone fruits, it is an invaluable reference and pleasure.”
—Barbara Kafka, winner of the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award
“At the core of The Perfect Fruit is a ‘flavor revolution,’ a shift in American tastes toward quality and flavor and away from plentiful, but tasteless commodities. Chasing the story of these luscious new fruit hybrids, Brantley comes face to face with a fundamental change in the way we eat.”
—Robb Walsh, author of Sex, Death, and Oysters