FFM: Save the Dates!

Found at the Farmers Market

From the late summer, dates have been abundant at both the Berkeley and Temescal farmers markets. At the Tuesday Berkeley Market, I especially enjoyed chatting up two palmeros from Indio, near Coachella Valley in SoCal. As I discovered from this Village Profile of Indio, Coachella Valley is the largest date growing region in the nation. Aren't we lucky! Dates grow best in hot, arid environments where there is a lot of groundwater - unfortunately, I think most of the water in SoCal is there by irrigation and water diversion, so maybe not so lucky.

The first time I encountered a date farm was while camping in the Furnace Creek Oasis in Death Valley. Apparently, many date trees there have been relocated to make room for a solar power installation. According to the PR, these date trees are not indigenous to Death Valley, but were planted by the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the 1920s. I haven't been able to figure out what kind of dates are grown there, but you can order some , as well as a date cookbook, from the gift shop at the resort.

The two palmeros from Indio described their growing environment as a permaculture farm with a variety of plants growing among the date trees. Sadly, I don't have their farm info, but above is a picture of some of their lovely dates. Front and center on the stalk is a bunch of early-harvest Bahri dates. Bahris hail from Israel and according to my two palmeros, as well as FreshPlaza.com, these dates are unique in that they can be eaten in the early stage as you see in the picture.

At this stage, the date is dry and eating it is similar to eating cane sugar - sweet, fibrous, and chewy. The flavor is a faint maple sugar, but doesn't stick to your teeth or stick around in the mouth. Better than gum! To the left in the picture are two later-stage Bahri dates, which I matured by leaving out on the kitchen counter for two weeks. I later purchased a pound of mature Bahris from the same guys. Mature, these dates are unbelievably delicious. The pulp inside becomes molten - like caramel and just as sweet. I gave one to a friend that doesn't like dates because of the fiber and even she agreed they were great. I feel terribly naughty every time I eat one - like I'm scarfing down a king-sized Snickers. Note: they don't last forever on the counter. I tried hanging onto a few for more than 2 weeks and the last three molded. Recently, I stopped by Zare at FlyTrap (what happened to just FlyTrap? ) for a cheesecake and discovered they had replaced the figs with Bahri dates -- not as good a contrast as a slightly tart fig. It might have helped to squeeze the date flesh cheesecake like drizzled caramel and discard the papery outside. Still, I was glad to see them presented as Bahris and told the waiter about the joys of the early harvest.

Below the mature Bahri on the left in the on the picture is a Medjool date. One Medjool grower, Del Real, shows up regularly at the Temscal market and his dates are true workhorses. By that, I mean that they are plump and a great choice for raw food prep where dates are featured, although most any date works for general sweetening. Dates, along with agave, are the preferred natural sweeteners in raw prep. I wasn't able to order dates from the Del Real website (broken), but I did talk to the farmers market rep and he told me to call them for orders.

To the right of the Bahri bunch are two jujubes, also known as Chinese dates and not to be confused with the gumdrop-like candies. The texture of these is more like a gummy apple than a date. I enjoyed their light sweetness, which pairs well with tea. I left these out until they dried and wrinkled. The flesh under the skin became softer, tending toward a banana, but the taste was old and flat (not just overripe and no sweeter). Eat these fresh or not at all! Better yet, wait for the early-harvest Bahris to return next year.

Found while researching this article:

date recipe combines both dates and persimmons, my favorites!

FFM: Picking up the Pawpaws

Found at the Farmers Market

I happened upon my first ever pawpaw at the Temescal Farmer's Market. The yellowgreen and eggplant-purple spud presented like an oblong passion fruit and caught my eye because I'd never seen such a thing. I picked up what turned out to be as soft as an overripe avocado. The farmer told me it was a pawpaw, which was like telling me I was holding a dinosaur egg. Ahhh, the mythical treasure of that oft-sung childhood ditty "picking up pawpaws, putting them in a basket". A review of the traditional lyrics indicates that many a child has gone missing in the pawpaw patch, but gives few clues beyond that.

The farmer told me that the fruit was also known as custard apple, but a look at wikipedia fixes them as a distant cousin. The interesting thing about them is that they appear to be the only species in the family that gets out of the tropics. Family members include the cherimoya, the ylang-ylang (with it's heavy-scented bloom), and the soursop. A listing from the California Rare Fruit Growers notes that while pawpaws are "native to the temperate woodlands of the eastern U.S.," they have been successfully adapted to Northern California (from San Jose upwards into Oregon). And thus, there are pawpaws at my local farmers market.

The possibility of natural fruit custard excited me from a raw food perspective - I imagined raw flan, raw banana cream pies, and the like. For brunch guests, I stripped off the heavy pawpaw peel and squeezed the contents into a bowl. In a normal sized pawpaw, I'd say there is about a 1/4 cup of custard-like material tops. Pawpaws seeds look like dried black kidney beans and are covered in a fibrous film much like an apple seed or core. The contents become firmer around the seeds, but might soften up with further ripening. The one I disgorged was still somewhat green. I have one full-on purple one that I'll try next.

We sampled the custard-like material, but sadly, no one went back for a second taste. The pawpaw had two distinct phases. The first is a delightful banana pudding texture and flavor that made me think I had discovered a godsend of a fruit. The second phase was a not-so-good taste for most of my guests. Hidden behind the banana was a hint of anise that turned acrid and fell flat on the tongue. I am guessing a hardy helping of sweetener could rescue the pawpaw finish and keep it in happy custard land.

I found an article on pawpaws from the Kansas City Star archives in which they interview a guy who makes pawpaw cheesecake - sounds promising. According to this article "In 2004 Slow Food USA included the pawpaw in its Ark of Taste, which identifies desirable foods that are disappearing and seeks to raise awareness and create markets for them." I was hoping for the cheesecake recipe, but alas, they only had one for pawpaw cookies with black walnuts. The article suggested that the fruit custard could be substituted for bananas in recipes. I'm guessing you would need 2-3 pawpaws to equal 1 banana. Because of the fabulous custard texture, my first thought is to explore recreating the banana cream pie my grandmother and mother make - but I'll need a lot more pawpaws and there's no pawpaw patch nearby. *sigh* (The KC articles are not available anymore, but you can currently watch this video from them on pawpaws.)

Update: The ripe, fully purple pawpaw was sweeter start to finish, with a faintly spunky aftertaste - preferable to the acrid ending of the not-so-ripe fruit.

Endives!

I had no idea of the fantastic journey these compact buds of red or white leaves make from seed to market. Had I known, I would have happily paid double the sales price for this "white gold".

Briefly, endives (pronounced AHN-deevs) start out simply enough as seeds planted in rows that eventually bloom into large leafy chicory plants. The plants have a deep root (over a meter long) that is the size of a double-wide carrot. At harvest time, the plants are topped, a short segment of the root is retrieved, and the leaves are recycled. The retrieved roots then go into cold storage, where they remain until they are needed. When ready, the roots are placed in large trays (so large they must be moved with forklifts) and are constantly bathed in water for a period of hydroponic sprouting. As demonstrated in the picture above, the root begins to sprout and this is what we have come to known as endive.

You can see pictures of the process, get endive recipes, and more at California Vegetable Specialties. I met the couple who run this organization and they were a true delight. I vow to buy more endives!

Slow Food Nation '08

San Francisco kicked off another movement - slow food - with this inaugural three-day event. Living nearby, I was privy to a great deal of media coverage regarding the festival. After hearing interview upon interview, reading article upon article, a few things stuck in my mind.

I appreciated the spokeswoman who said that the goal of this festival is not to advocate for radical change, but rather to encourage people to spend perhaps 15 minutes more each day thinking about their food and to consider cooking one more meal at home each week. This sentiment paired well with a sentiment I picked up from reading Michael Polan's Ominvore's Dilemma and which was also a theme of the festival: that farmers markets, community supported agriculture farms (CSAs), and backyard victory gardens are a frustrated peoples' response to the industrial food system. And so in that sense, eating whole, local food is a political, even radical, act.

While you won't find me joining any slow food chapters or wearing a slow food tee shirt,I did enjoy my Sunday strolling through the amazing garden planted several months ago on the front lawn of City Hall and meeting small farmers from the bay area. My gratitude goes out to Marshall's Farm Honey for harvesting micro-local varietals of honey. I asked if they had any originating from Oakland, and sure enough, they served up a bottle of Oak Town Neighbor "Hood" honey. I bought a jar to inspire me to pursue my interest in beekeeping at the StayPut Farm. Sadly, I think the Nubian goats (along with goat milk, goat yogurt, and goat cheese) will probably have to wait until we move - or our neighbors move and we buy the property for farm expansion.

Eating as an environmental and spiritual act

"The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps the most direct interaction with the earth."

This quote by Frances Moore Lappé in her book Diet for a Small Planet inspired me to consider the broader implications of feeding my body. The choices I make bring me closer - or push me further away - from the natural world around me. Eating a tomato harvested from my garden is nothing less than a synthesis of my body with the elements: the air, the water, the sun, the soil. Reading Lappé's quote, I realized that every meal is an opportunity to become one with the stuff of the Universe. But if eating is simply nutritious and (I hope) pleasurable, then this too is enough.