Fresh fruit and fire, a summer romance

A longtime friend and I were on the phone. Before I even finished my sentence, I sensed how she would react when I told her I would be putting pineapple and plantains on the grill.

I could practically hear her eyes roll.

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She’s from Texas.

Real Texans barbecue.

When they do grill, the food is steaks or chops. Not, for cryin’ out loud, fruit.

I exaggerate, of course. Texans grill. They even grill fruit. But they don’t brag about it.

You’ve been in the North too long, she said. The verbal arrow was wounding, but not fatal.

My early barbecue education took place in the classroom called the Lone Star State, and my lessons in the first years were aimed at perfecting the iconic three-meat barbecue plate: succulent slow-smoked beef brisket, tender pork ribs and spicy German sausage.

My studies broadened about 20 years ago when my wife and I returned from a trip to the Texas Hill Country. We had visited a peach orchard, where we picked several baskets of the Red Globe variety. Succumbing to the scent there, I looked at a peach I had just plucked, hesitated, looked around to see if anyone was watching, then took a bite.

My teeth sank into the fat fruit’s flame-hued skin, as much slurp as bite. The just-picked texture was as soft yet firm as a mother’s love. Before I finished chewing, a rivulet of nectar ran down my arm.

This was not the rock that passes for a peach in the supermarket. This was a sense memory. Someone else’s, to be sure. I had never tasted a peach like this. But our forebears had, and that knowledge was transmitted to me in a kind of culinary genetic encoding. Call it the food-taste equivalent of deja vu.

When we returned home, I glanced at my smoker, then at the baskets of peaches. I knew what I had to do.

Put together two great flavors — chocolate and peanut butter, ketchup and fries, ice cream and anything — and you’ve got something sublime. And so it is with the two great flavor makers of summer: fresh fruit and fire.

Peaches are substantial enough to handle flame. They have plenty of sugars in them to benefit from the concentration of flavor that fire imparts.

Many other fruits like a little turn over the fire as well. Pineapple might be the gateway grill fruit. Its solid texture makes it nearly impossible to mess up, while its year-round availability provides ample opportunities to try different treatments. I like setting a slice beneath a scoop of sherbet or adding it to a barbecue sauce, and, although I haven’t made it, I have enjoyed it smoked in an upside-down cake. But my go-to treatment is salsa, with its play of stinging peppers against the tart pineapple. It’s summery and goes great with grilled fish.

Success with pineapple will entice you to expand the fruited field. A quarter-inch- to half-inch-thick slab of watermelon (cut into quarters for easy handling) grills in about two minutes per side and pairs incredibly well with feta and mint. A small halved and seeded cantaloupe grilled cut side down for a few minutes, then filled with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream makes a sort of grilled Creamsicle. Even plantains, which seem too soft to take the heat, caramelize nicely when brushed with vegetable oil and taste fabulous when tossed in a mixture of melted butter, brown sugar, a little orange juice and a sprinkling of cayenne or ancho chili powder.