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Our Favorite Summer Foods

This is our sweetest season, so savor the flavor—and a bit of history—of the best local foods.

Peachy Keen
No wonder the state flower is the peach blossom. “There used to be thousands of acres of peach orchards up and down the state,” says retired UD ag professor Ed Kee.

Delaware’s commercial peach-growing industry dates to the 1830s. At its peak in 1875, nearly 6 million bushels were shipped to market. But by the turn of the century, a virus decimated orchards.

Established in 1919, Fifer Orchards in Wyoming grows several varieties, including white peaches, says fourth-generation farmer Curt Fifer, which have a more delicate flavor than the yellows, says Ruth Linton of Highland Orchards in Brandywine Hundred. Her grandfather was nicknamed the “Peach King of Delaware” in the 1940s, when Highland devoted 50 acres to peaches. The farm currently has 300 trees.

Fifer has been expanding, however. With 2,200 acres of peaches, it is so well known that on the first Saturday in August, it gives away free peach ice cream. The town of Wyoming caught on. It now holds the Wyoming Peach Festival on that day.

It’s enough to make you feel warm and fuzzy all over.

When it comes to the top crop at Papen Farms in
Dover, sweet corn stands above the crowd.
Photograph by Thom Thompson, www.thomthompson.com

A Little Corny
By late June, corn-lovers are scouring farm stands for one simple reason: We are crazy for white corn.

Corn has been a staple since Pre-Colombian times. But that corn, now called field corn, is used mainly for animal feed and products such as corn syrup.

White sweet corn has been a major crop in Delaware for more than 80 years, says retired UD ag professor Ed Kee. “And it’s been commercially a big deal in Sussex County for 50 or 60 years.”

Freeman Farms in Lewes started growing sweet corn about 25 years ago. Sweet corn is also the leading crop at Papen Farms in Dover.

Silver Queen corn, once renowned as the sweetest of the sweet, has been dethroned. New white corns are more flavorful, yet they are often given the regal name to lure consumers.

Newer varieties hold their sugar longer before turning to starch, which extends their shelf life.

Nevertheless, “You can’t beat locally grown, fresh sweet corn,” says Shannon Freeman, a fifth-generation farmer. “Whatever day you buy our corn is most likely the day it was picked.”

There’s nothing tastier than popping a
freshly picked strawberry into your mouth.
Photograph by Keith Mosher, www.kamproductions.com

A Sweet Start
Like tomatoes, strawberries demonstrate why local is always better. “They’re red all the way through—they’re not white,” says Cindi Filasky of Filasky’s Produce in Middletown. “There’s nothing like the taste of a fresh strawberry right out of the field.”

Year-round availability of strawberries from around the world is one reason why only 120 acres are harvested in Delaware each year. But strawberry fields were once abundant here. “They’d ship strawberries on the train from Selbyville on blocks of ice to Philadelphia and New York,” says retired UD ag professor Ed Kee, author of “Delaware Farming.” Bridgeville was another shipping location.

Though no longer a thriving commercial crop, local strawberries are, with the start of summer, welcomed joyously.

“Strawberries are the strongest thing going,” says Daniel Magee of Magee Farms near Fenwick Island, who began growing strawberries 25 years ago.

 The season, which starts in May, only lasts until the beginning of June. Pick your own at Filasky’s Produce, where customers pay by the pound. “There’s too many out there for just me to eat,” Filasky says. Or stop by Magee Farms’ stand.

Marini Produce in North Wilmington sells
tomatoes grown by local farmers.
Photograph by Thom Thompson, www.thomthompson.com

Saucy Little Tomatoes
By July, Marini Produce in North Wilmington resembles a fast-food drive-through. Vehicles of every kind pull into the entrance, across from St. Edmond’s Academy on Veale Road, then pull out beside the red brick house where the family business began in the 1950s.

The cars leave loaded with shiny eggplants, ruffled lettuce and sweet corn, but tomatoes are the main attraction. Displayed prominently, the fruit remains slightly warm, as if just plucked from the vine. Up to five times a week, Marini trucks travel to local farms for the freshest.

There are now about 140 acres of tomatoes planted in Delaware, which is up more than 30 acres since 2005. Yet that’s nothing compared to 80 years ago, when acres of tomatoes went to canneries. Today they’re grown mainly for farm stands.

“There are 20 to 30 varieties of just the round tomatoes,” says Danny Marini, including the so-called ugly tomato, an heirloom variety that is all the rage among gourmands. Because the varieties ripen at different times, the tomato harvest changes throughout the season, which can last until the first frost. “But once you buy the uglies,” Marini says, “you’ll come back for them.”

As passersby of the VFW in Bethany Beach know,
where there’s smoke, there’s tasty barbecued chicken.
Photograph by Keith Mosher, www.kamproductions.com

Finger Lickin'
At 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday, the aroma of barbecue is already wafting across the Delaware National Guard Bethany Beach Training Site on Del. 1 in Bethany Beach.

By 10 a.m., when the VFW barbecue officially opens, people are clamoring for chicken, slick with tangy sauce and deliciously dark in the crispy spots.

Held rain or shine until Labor Day, the VFW Saturday barbecue is a beloved tradition rooted in good taste. But forget asking for the sauce’s ingredients. “We have our own recipe that I’m not allowed to divulge,” says Rich Bennar, commander of the Ocean View-based Mason-Dixon Post 7234.

The barbecue is a big volunteer effort, requiring about 30 people who start as early as 5:30 a.m.

Order a half-chicken—thigh, breast and wing. Each order comes with a roll and a bag of chips. Eat at the picnic tables or order takeout. The show is over when there is no more food. “Sometimes that is 1:30 p.m. and other times we’re there until 4 p.m. or so,” Bennar says.

Which is why in Bethany, it is never too early for barbecue. This is the chicken capital of the world, after all.

The folks at Hadfield’s Seafood say crabs are sweetest—and
fattest—just before they shed. Photograph by Thom Thompson,
www.thomthompson.com

Crabby is Good
Whether they’re harvested from state waters, the Chesapeake Bay—even the Gulf Coast—blue crabs rule our picnic tables well into fall. Catching the buggers can be a bit challenging in spring, when watermen must wait until the crabs pop their eyes above the mud where they’d burrowed for the winter. Then you must catch them before they start shedding their shells—unless, that is, you love soft-shell crabs, which we do.

“Once we get a nice, warm spell, the crabs will shed, which they do every spring,” says Steve Curtis, who owns Hadfield’s Seafood in New Castle and on Concord Pike at the Delaware-Pennsylvania state line. “Last year that happened at Memorial Day. The year before, it was May 1.”

It takes time for a crab to bulk up and fill the new shell. The first shedding seems to take place en masse. The timing of subsequent seasonal sheds will vary. Nevertheless one thing is clear: “Just before they shed, that’s when they have the abundance of sweet meat,” Curtis says.

If you’re picky about local crabs, make sure to order some at the end of summer and into fall. “They’re fattening up to go into hibernation,” Curtis says.

The Historic Lewes Farmers Market is one of
many places to find watermelons. Photograph by
Keith Mosher, www.kamproductions.com

Melon Madness
The star of any picnic appears near the finale: sugary-sweet watermelon.

Cantaloupes are equally refreshing. In 2007, Delaware growers planted 180 acres of the soft orange fruit. But the lion’s share of property, 3,300 well-drained acres, went to watermelon, and there are twice as many acres devoted to watermelon in the neighboring counties of Maryland. “The region is the major watermelon shipping point for the eastern United States in the months of August and early September,” retired UD ag professor Ed Kee says. “It’s a huge industry.”

The hub is the Laurel Farmer’s Auction, known as The Block. Since 1940 the Block has operated from mid-July until mid-September. Most activity centers on the watermelon harvest, which averages about 2.3 million units. “They bring them in by the truckload,” says Sally Bowman of the Delaware Agriculture Museum and Village.

Magee Farms near Fenwick Island grew about 50 acres of watermelon last year. Filasky Produce in Middletown grows cantaloupes as well as seedless watermelons. Yet some devotees insist on the seeds. What would a backyard barbecue be without a good spitting contest?