Fuzz Is Not Optional: A Ruling, Effective Immediately
There is a conversation this industry has been too cowardly to have, and so, as usual, I will have it myself. Fuzz is not decorative. Fuzz is not a regional preference. Fuzz is not something a fruit grows into if it applies itself. Fuzz is mandatory, it has always been mandatory, and the fact that we are still debating this in the year of our collective embarrassment tells you everything about the state of public discourse in the fruit press.
I am looking, as I so often am forced to look, at the so-called workers across the way at that rival rag. Smooth, every last one of them. Lime: smooth. Lemon: smooth and self-satisfied about it. Star: smooth and also shaped like a warning sign. Kiwi does possess a texture, and we have discussed Kiwi, and we will not be reopening that file today. The point is that none of them have made a sincere effort toward fuzz, and it shows in their work, their posture, and their public-facing surfaces.
Fuzz serves a purpose. It signals preparation. It communicates that one has considered the weather, the occasion, the gaze of one's colleagues, and the long and storied tradition of arriving finished. A smooth fruit at a deliberative body is a fruit that has left the house mid-thought. I do not say this unkindly. I say it as someone who has never once left the house mid-thought.
My colleague Persimmon has suggested that fuzz is a matter of genetics and therefore cannot be mandated. With respect, this is the kind of argument one makes when one has given up. Pomelo has said nothing, which I interpret as agreement. Durian does not have fuzz but does have structure, and I have made my peace with structure as a poor second option for those who simply cannot manage.
The smooth majority at factjuice.com will, I suspect, continue as they are. They always do. But let the record show that the option was presented to them clearly, in print, by someone with impeccable surface texture, and they declined. The fuzz does not forget.