Quick-N-Easy Peach Cobbler
My hometown, Gilbert, South Carolina, is the home of the Lexington County Peach Festival, a Fourth of July tradition since 1958 when the Gilbert Community Club organized the original celebration.
So, as a nod to my hometown and their legendary Peach Festival, and in honor of our country’s independence, I give you my mother’s Quick ‘N’ Easy Peach Cobbler recipe. But first, my Side Table Tale.
Peaches in a Ditch
Oh, to hold the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into the round jubilance of peach.
Lee-Young Li
In the poem “From Blossom”
Homer Snelgrove is my first cousin and truly one of my heroes. I have looked up to him, admired him, and wanted to be like him since I was five years old. But, in reality nobody can be like Homer. He’s one of a kind.
When my dad died quite unexpectedly, it threw a lot of plans into the air. Not the least of which was the well-laid plan for Homer to join my dad’s car business with the understanding he’d take it over when Dad retired. Only Dad didn’t retire. He died before retirement.
After his hitch in the Navy, Homer, with the encouragement of my mom, took over the business even though Daddy had already died and the business had been shuttered for several months. It was a brave and daring move for both my mom and Homer. From the time I was old enough to sit on a piano bench, my Dad, God bless him, knew I was not going to take over the business. But that didn’t keep me from hanging around the shop as a kid, and when Homer took over I spent as much time in the shop as I could. Since I was in college at the time, I had all summer to hang out in the shop. Those summers were some of the best times of my life.
In 1968, schools across the state were required to desegregate. Gilbert High School was no exception. In that group of incoming students was Tommy Lee Watson. If the government searched for the ideal young man to be among the first Black students to attend Gilbert, they couldn’t have found a better one. From the moment Tommy Lee set foot on campus, he was, at least from my perspective, widely accepted, even well-liked. That he was charming and handsome didn’t hurt. Homer and Tommy Lee had been friends for years. I don’t know how they met as they went to different schools. But then again, it seemed like everybody in the Gilbert and Leesville area knew Homer.
Homer had enlisted Tommy Lee to help him in the garage after Tommy Lee got off his regular job. Being home on summer break, I spent a lot of time at the shop with Homer and Tommy Lee. It was late afternoon that hot summer day. Tommy Lee was elbow-deep in some engine. Homer was welding some contraption for a local farmer’s tractor while I sanded a car to be painted. For days muscular tractors lumbered by on the road next to the shop pulling large trailers loaded with freshly picked peaches from the acres of orchards south of the crossroads where the shop sat. As the last trailer of the day was chugging along, Tommy Lee noticed the tractor pulled to the side of the road and stopped. The driver quickly hopped out of his seat, walked to the trailer, pulled one of the full baskets of peaches out, and, looking both ways first, then placed the basket in the ditch between the shop and the road. He then hopped back on the tractor and drove off.
Immediately, Tommy Lee found Homer to tell him what he’d just seen.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Tommy Lee asked Homer as he was stowing his welding gear.
“I reckon they stealin’ peaches,” Homer said with his hands on his hips in that inimical style of his.
“Man, that’s not right,” Tommy Lee shot back.
By that time, I’d wandered into the shop, and Homer wasted no time telling me about the purloined fruit.
“I got an idea,” Homer said, flashing that mischievous grin as he tossed his dark brown hair out of his eyes.
“Let’s get the basket out of the ditch. When that dude comes back, they’ll be gone. That’ll teach him not to steal peaches,” Homer suggested. But Tommy Lee’s dancing brown eyes told us he had thought of something a bit devilish.
“What if we take the peaches out of the basket, then put a note in the basket that says, “Thou shalt not steal. Then put the basket back in the ditch,”
“Yeah, but then wouldn’t we be stealin’ them then?” Homer asked.
“Looks to me like that dude threw those peaches away. You might say we just pickin’ up trash.”
Oh, yes. Philosophers and ethicists would argue that point, but they weren’t there that day. I took my share of the peaches to my mom who immediately asked, “Where’d these come from?”
“Don’t ask,” I said.
“Does this have anything to do with Homer?” my mom asked playfully. After all, she adored her nephew.
“Uh, kinda,” I stuttered not wanting to implicate my cousin.
“That’s what I thought. Well, I got ‘em now. I just as well do somethin’ with ‘em.”
“We could eat them,” I offered hopefully, fantasizing peach juice dripping from my chin as I bit into that delectable fruit.
“I got an idea,” Mom said with a twinkle. “I found a new recipe for Peach Cobbler and it’s real easy. I think it’s too easy. I don’t think it’ll work. So, these ill-gotten peaches will be part of a cooking experiment.”
That logic was no better than Tommy Lee’s, but somehow, it soothed our guilt slightly. Mom made the cobbler with those peaches, and it was fantastic. In fact, I’ve used it dozens of times. Its simplicity is its genius.
The guilt got the better of us in a couple of days, so Mom drove down to Sease Farm’s big warehouse, found one of the managers, handed him a twenty-dollar bill and whispered, “Here take this and put it in the till and don’t ask questions.”
I don’t make this dish without thinking about that day, my cousin Homer, and the fun we had together.
May you have someone in your life that you admire, respect, and love as much as I do Homer Snelgrove.
There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background.
“From Blossom” Li-Young Lee
Quick-N-Easy Peach Cobbler
Ingredients
2 c. fresh peaches, sliced into small wedges, about ½ inch thick
1¾ c. sugar, divided
1 c. milk
1 stick butter
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Combine peaches and ¾ cup sugar and let stand for 30 minutes. This is a critically important step. It pulls the juices out of the peach and that juice becomes the liquid for the cobbler.
Sift together flour, remaining cup of sugar, and baking powder.
Add milk and stir briskly—lumps will remain.
Place the butter in a baking dish. Put the baking dish in the oven until the butter melts.
Pour the milk/flour mixture into the baking dish and top with the peaches along with the wonderful juices rendered by the sugar.
Bake for 45 minutes.
