Good Food is Everybody's Business
Thumbs up and thumbs down for the foods and beverages trends we’ve applauded and booed in our more than 20 years immersed in the exploration of mainstream and fringes of food culture. Here is a sampling of trends that have influenced food culture in sweet and sour ways.
We are surrounded by a chemical bath that contaminates our food chain. Are these chemicals being tested, evaluated and regulated? Our Daily Poison demonstrates how relentlessly “Big Chem” poisons our plates.
It’s only recently that I started to become enthusiastic about Brussels sprouts (and for the longest time I thought it was “Brussel” sprout). They’re up there with Lima beans on the list of vegetables people tend to despise. I had to find out if they were really so bad – how could they be, when they look so adorable?
If you want fruit for yourself and not the neighborhood raccoons, do NOT plant a plum tree! Your creative raccoons will elect a “climber” to go up in the tree and carefully pick and drop every piece of fruit to the ground so the “gatherers” can run off with the loot. At least that’s what we think happened when our plum tree was stripped of all its nearly ripe fruit in a single night. On the other hand, the quince was left to its own business.
Kate had never before encountered a parsnip until the week they suddenly appeared at the food co-op. Parsnips can be counted among the roots and tubers – they’re closely related to carrots, no surprise considering their appearance. They’re woodier though, with a distinct earthy flavor. And she makes “fries” out of them!
We used to have 16,000 varieties of apples. What happened to them? Gary Nabhan, author and ethnobotanist, talks about preserving those that are left.
Making out your Thanksgiving menu? Checking it twice? So what’s the most popular pie for dessert? Yes, Virginia, it’s pumpkin pie… but a close second is apple. Good, old fashioned, homemade apple pie! Meet George and Apple Otte, River Vally Organics, growers of organic apples and pears.
This being my first time cooking with fresh plums (or any plums for that matter), and also my first time canning such a large quantity of jam, I conducted a new experiment with each batch. I wanted to see what tasted the best, and also what was the easiest method of converting raw fruit into jam. Peeled or not? Diced or mashed?
