Summertime’s a’comin’! The kids are out of school, the weather is warmer – and you’re probably thinking about that summer vacation you’ve got planned.
Don’t have a summer holiday on the books yet? Consider a different kind of vacation – a farm stay.
Think food and poison together, and you’d probably come up with puffer fish that seems to kill an equal number of chefs and their ardent followers every year. But what about common foods in the kitchen?
So here let’s not mention the obvious pesticides, insecticides, additives and other cleaning and corrosive chemicals that can seep into food and kill us. The top seven poisons in the kitchen often come from food itself – vegetable, fruits, meat, and spices – they are all out to get us, or so it seems…
The temperatures are on the rise, flowers are in bloom and farmer’s markets are stocked full of this season’s finest. If you look, you will find asparagus most dominantly known in its green variety, but also available in white and purple, stocked on the shelves. This nutrient dense vegetable is only available in the produce aisle of your local supermarket from February to June, with its peak harvest in April, when the price for these gems may come down a bit.
Why all the hype about asparagus?
Buckwheat was first cultivated in Japan in approximately 5000 B.C.E. The plant then found its way to China and Siberia in about 1000 B.C.E. It migrated to Europe through Turkey and Russia between the 14th and 15th centuries and arrived in America with the Dutch in the 17th century. The name was derived from the Dutch word “bockweit” which means “beech wheat" as the fruit looked like beechnuts.
Semolina is a healthy way to get your carb fix and if you make it this way, your tongue will thank you too, be it for the savory breakfast or the sweet post-dinner dessert.
Nightshades contain some of the world's most poisonous and beloved plants all at once. Potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers are all related to belladonna (deadly nightshade), jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), and mandrake, yet we love eating them!
Spring is here and garlic scapes are in season!
Garlic scapes are the long, curly, flower buds of the garlic plant that are typically picked and tossed by commercial operations. (Removing the flower bud allows the garlic bulb to mature in the ground.) The more savvy and local farmers at your co-op or farmer’s market know better; garlic scapes are delicious and can be found in the spring season and used for all sorts of dishes including stir-fries, salads, soups, and yes, even pesto.
Remember your ma yelling in your ear to eat your veggies? Well, she was right. In all cuisines and all parts of the world, vegetables are part of a healthy diet for they offer so much, for such little calories.
Wild rice is not actually rice at all, but the seed from a grass of semi-aquatic species found from southern Canada to the eastern United States along the Atlantic coastal marshes. It was the staple food for the Ojibwa and Chippewa people who gathered it by canoe and fire parched the seeds.
We've grown so used to supermarkets providing food for us that we have forgotten how to find food for ourselves. Well, not everyone (but the majority of people have). Believe it or not, people actually trust the grocery store more than the plants growing around their home. Whenever I even suggest the idea of foraging to most people, they look at me like I have three heads. The problem with grocery stores is you cannot see the process the food undergoes. You cannot watch it grow, know who picked it, or understand how it was treated.