The Decline of the Peach

The peach (Prunus persica) is a species of Prunus native to China that bears an edible juicy fruit also called a peach.

Peaches don't even rank in the Top Ten of Most Popular Fruits these days. The three ranked most popular probably don't surprise you - tomatoes, bananas and apples. I can accept that grapes and oranges might be more popular than peaches. I can even deal with watermelon being up there - but figs and dates? How could these two insignificant, minor fruits be more popular than peaches, the fruit of kings?

Sadly, this is not an aberration of the public psyche, but yet another signpost along the way to cultural degeneration. A society that does not value peaches doesn't value morality, progress and free thought. A society that does not eat peaches is doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Empires that are now merely footnotes in dusty unread history books ignored the most noble of fruits to their peril - Rome, the Tang Dynasty, the British Empire.

The Great Explorers of the 17th Century brought two things with them into the darkness of the unmapped continents - the torch, and the peach. The first, they used to push back the darkness, to fight it. But the peach, that was no mere weapon. The peach is both magic symbol and magic object. It represents civilisation, eternity, enlightenment. It gives its consumer nourishment, essential vitamins and rejuventation.

Every major city in the world was founded around a peach tree. In smaller ones, where the pace of modern life has yet to take hold, you might still find that original peach tree, at the centre of the city. In these cities, people seem to breathe a little slower. The birds still sing in the morning and when you bump into someone on the street they smile, you might even join them for coffee.

But in more and more cities, the peach tree is buried beneath construction sites. In its place rise sporting stadiums and shopping centres. The people have no time for each other, and no one ever smiles, because their teeth are stained red with tomato juice.