Vegetables, according to the USFDA pyramid, circle, steps, whatever!, are supposed to be our largest intake on any given day. We should be eating vegetables more than anything else. And yet we tend to consume less than 5% of our calories from vegetables on a daily basis. What?!
Most of us make do with potatoes. We may throw in broccoli, peas, those "baby" carrots, corn (not a vegetable, by the way!). Green beans. Still, five percent! And almost two thirds of that is potatoes. That's a lot of spuds!
I'm here to advocate for the forgotten legumes. Those that sit on the sidelines, subject to your weekly disdain, ignorance, even your fear! They hear you! "Yuck!" you say before you've even tried it! "What is THAT?" you ask nobody. But you could ask your green grocer. Find the older guy working in produce and I promise he will know its name and how to cook it. He's been waiting for you!
Take the time to pick up a squash. Take it home, cut it half and stick it in the oven with some butter inside that hollowed out cavity. Add some brown sugar. Mmmm. Hold that eggplant and see how beautifully that purple skin shines! A purple vegetable! I can count them on one hand: radicchio, cabbage, endive, beets, eggplant.
Stop your cart and grab those radishes, then spread it with the best butter you can buy. Spoon your crab salad atop a spear of endive. Saute those leeks and add them to your quiche, your soup, your diced potatoes, your eggs. Swiss chard completes polenta like nothing else can. Surprise your kids and make it rainbow chard. Add it to your lentil soup. Throw in some sausage and a sprinkling of parmesan and there you are in Tuscany. Wilt it with that crumbled bacon you just cooked and scoop it onto a garlicky crouton. Yum!
Pick through those brussels sprouts: baby cabbages that bring out the best in meats. Shave these, julienne them, halve them. Add butter. Maybe some lemon zest. Orange zest! Parmesan! Boiled, roasted, steamed, this bitter veggie loves to complement chicken, bacon, beef. Add apples. Be bolder and add quince! (a neglected fruit!)
Don't judge a vegetable by its looks. You'd be missing out on some of the ugliest secrets: celery root, parsnips, salsify, jicama. Celery root really is the root from which celery grows. A hidden bonus! But nothing like celery. This root is a hideous, wrinkly brown with knobs all over it. Cut it all off and you have a root vegetable that can be eaten raw or cooked. Add some to your next slaw. Matchstick this one all by itself with some mayo and a sprinkling of salt and parsley and you've got a refeshing picnic salad. Add one to your mashed potatoes and you've got mashed potatoes that people will talk about. When was the last time that happened to you? Your root vegetable gratin will thank you. (Yes, those parsnips and turnips go in there too!) Your roasted vegetables will welcome this stranger like a prodigal son. Convene these underground treasures and you might even feel like you can skip the pot roast.
Some of the best veggies are alien: jicama, that Mexican pear, has a crunchy pale flesh hiding behind boring brown skin. Nopales: add them to your next taco, stuff them with your pulled pork, throw them into a hollowed out tomato. Tell your family you're having cactus for dinner and just smile as their mouths drop open.
Variety, they say, is the spice of life. This must especially ring true at the table. Cultures who enjoy diversity in their diets tend to be healthier. Look around you. That Meat and Potatoes diet doesn't seem to be working too well for us.
Throw caution to the wind! Grab that stranger and take it home. Conquer that "I don't know what to do with it." Start a conversation in the produce section. You may make a friend, vegetable or human...does it matter? And when in doubt, do what the French do: add more butter!
No comments:
Post a Comment