You can enjoy them dried or fresh. They can brighten up your breakfast parfaits and add oomph to your salads. You can bake, boil, or steam them to make delicious side dishes. You can even give your diet a magnesium boost using this delicious fruit. And while they’re popular across the globe, it’s a small, rural West Coast city you may have never heard of that’s known as the apricot capital of the world. We’re talking about Patterson, California, a city with a population of around 25,000 whose story is so intrinsically linked with apricots that it even has a variety named after it.
Patterson is a small city located in California’s Central Valley. It’s modeled after the layout of Washington, D.C. — concentric circles moving outwards from the center of the town. The town itself is surrounded by agricultural land, with almonds, tomatoes, peas, spinach, broccoli, and melons all contributing to the local economy. But it’s apricots that are the heroes. One local farm, Blossom Hill Apricots, calls Patterson the best apricot-growing grounds in the world — grounds on which the Patterson apricot thrives.
The Patterson apricot is a versatile, medium-to-large-sized fruit that can be canned, dried, or eaten fresh. The flesh itself tastes sweet, but the skin has a tartness that cuts through the clean sugar hit. The Patterson apricot is one of many varieties that grow in the city, alongside varieties such as the Blenheim, Tilton, and Apache, as well as newer favorites like the Ruby Royal, Gold Bar, and Bonny Cot. While each has distinct characteristics when it comes to size, taste, and texture, they all have one thing in common: They’re always the talk of the town in Patterson.
Patterson is a place where apricots are celebrated
It’s not an exaggeration to say that in Patterson, apricots aren’t just cultivated, but celebrated — for more than 50 years, the city has been hosting an annual Patterson Apricot Fiesta, a three-day event that features pop-ups serving apricot jams, apricot sangrias, apricot ice cream, and even apricot-flavored kettle corn. To round things off, there are pie-eating contests, and given that this is an apricot fiesta organized in the apricot capital of the world, there should be no prizes for guessing what flavor the pies are…