New Year's Eve Food Challenge: What Is This Fruit We've Been Eating Over The Holidays?

It's the holiday season and, for many of us, that means sharing food. I'm sure today, New Year's Eve, is no exception. In fact, I'm sure that the majority of readers have shared this mystery food at some point over the holiday. 

Readers, can you tell us the name of this fruit? 

If you're stuck, here are some clues:

How do you eat this fruit? This fruit is unique in we eat its pulp as well as its seeds. The pulp can be eaten raw but the seeds need to be roasted or at least dried in the sun before eating.

Where is this fruit from? It is native to Central America although it is grown all over the world in tropical areas. And, Ghana is one of the world's largest producers of this fruit.

Please share your answers in the comments section below!

The Ethnobotany of Costa Rica's Palms

In Costa Rica, I am known as "chica del palmito" or, the heart of palm girl. I was given this nickname by heart of palm harvesters, national park employees, and univesrity professors while conducting research for my Masters degree and some how the name stuck. But my interest in palms runs deeper than heart of palm; palms are a group of plant species that provide unique sources of food and medicine for people all over the world. In this blog post, I will share a few ways people use palms for food, not only did I study this topic for my Masters research but it was also a part of my Ph.D. For more information on how people use palms, check out our article here.

Eating palm flowers 

Palm inflorescence on top of chopped heart of palm

Palm flowers are edible. But, because palm flowers are often very tiny, people harvest and eat the whole flowering structure, called an inflorescence (see picture on right). So instead of having palm flower salad, you can strir fry, boil, or roast the whole inflorescence. One of the species commonly eaten in rural costa rica is Chamaedorea tepejilote.

While working with Indigenous people in Costa Rica, I learned that people eat palm flowers from many palm species. My favorite palm flower dish was prepared with inflorescences from the versatile peach palm (Bactris gasipaes; pictured above). I first tried this dish while living with a Bribri family and learned the dish was a favorite of Bribri Elders. I like the fact that palm inflorescences are edible because palms produce many of them in their lifetimes; and, you do not have to chop down a whole tree to harvest them. I do require help, however, to harvest an inflorescence for palm species that grow tall. In the case of peach palm, chopping down an inflorecence requires a large pole and it requires careful attention to the stiff peach palm spines that can easily make harvesting unpleasant.  

Drinking Palm wine 

Making wine usually takes a lot of work, from smashing the grapes to fermenting the final product. But palm wine, on the other hand, can be harvested directly from the plant and does not require too much extra processing. Palm wine is basically the natural sap of the palm which is harvested and left to ferment. 

Harvesting palm wine from the Coyol palm (Acrocomia aculeata) is popular in the Pacific side of Costa Rica as well as other areas of Central America. But, to harvest quality palm wine, farmers explained to me that you must work in concert with lunar cycles. To ensure a good harvest of wine you should extract palm sap three days before or after a full moon. 

I first tried palm wine while driving through the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. During March and April you can buy this wine along the road side, but I chose to seek out a family who produced it at their home. Back in 2008, I was invited to join this family for a cold glass of off-white coloured palm sap. I had two options, with or without sugar. I opted for wine with no sugar added and surprisingly it had a sweet and tart taste. The idea of palm wine reminds me of maple syrup because it is a product produced entriely by a plant and its consumption requires only modest processing by people.

Eating palm hearts

Palm hearts are a unique food that are harvested from the inside of a palm tree stem. Large-scale palm farms can be found in Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Brazil and these farms supply canned heart of palm to supermarkets all over the world. Eating farmed heart of palm is like eating farmed bananas, these species are grown to be harvested and exported. 

The most commonly farmed palm species is the peach palm (Bactris gasipaes). But, in the tropics you can feast on multiple species of palm heart each with their own unique flavour. Some species are bitter and others are sweet, some even taste rich like butter. Many of these palm species are wild. Eating wild palm species is an activity that rural peoples have done for hundreds, or in some cases, thousands of years. Unfortunately, eating these unique wild species has caught on with some upscale businesses in Latin America and resulted in uncontrolled harvesting of wild species. 

In Costa Rica, I worked on the issue of uncontrolled harvesting of palms that occur in forest areas. This is a particularly complex issue. Palms are often harvested from protected forests and by Costa Rican law this is illegal. This makes sense to me for people who are harvesting bags of hundreds of palm hearts to sell in high end restaurants; it does not make sense, to me, for people who harvest only a few palms to eat with their families. Currently, to my knowledge harvesting foods in protected forests in Costa Rica is still illegal and this is something that I have been analyzing with Indigenous peoples as part of my Ph.D.

Solving The Spice Mystery: Where Do Pepper, Turmeric, and Vanilla Come From?

Our global food system does a good job hiding how and where our food is grown. Despite these tricks, we live in an era where we can find out food origins using tools such as smart phone food labels. Still some foods slip through the cracks. Spices are examples of those foods.

A few years ago at a dinner party, we got to chatting about where certain spices are produced. We made a bunch of pizzas from local ingredients (tomato sauce and cheese included) but we did not manage to source our salt and pepper locally. We read that our sea salt was from Israel but we couldn’t find out where our pepper came from (despite asking later at the shop we bought it from). As we chatted further, most of us didn’t know what geographic region black pepper was grown in or, for that mater, what a pepper plant looked like.

To give spices the attention they deserve, I’m going to share some of their interesting facts. I chose to talk about three spices that are not particularly well labeled in the super markets I frequent: pepper, turmeric, and vanilla; if you want me to talk about any others, just shoot me an email. 

Black Pepper (Piper nigrum)

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Black pepper is a fruit that grows on a small shrub in bunches and it comes from a family of plants called Piperaceae. Green peppercorns are unripe fruits from the same black pepper plants. This species is native to South India and it is commonly grown in the Kerala state. Major producers of pepper include: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. But, this plant grows in other regions too, such as Costa Rica.

Turmeric (Curcuma longa)

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Turmeric is a root or rhizome that grows underneath the ground. And, it looks a lot like ginger root. Many of us living outside of the tropics don’t’ realize the edible part of turmeric grows under soil because we buy it in powdered form. I was first introduced to turmeric root while living on the south Caribbean of Costa Rica and I had a fresh source of this spice growing in my backyard. Turmeric is not native to Costa Rica however, it is native to the Southeast Asia region. Although turmeric’s place of origin of is not identified in my botanical references, some botanists suggest it is native to south India.

Like many spices, turmeric is both a food and a medicine. Most of us know turmeric because it is a staple ingredient in Indian curry. But, turmeric has been used as a medicine since at least 250 B.C. Powder from this root can be mixed with honey to soothe a dry cough, which is a remedy from Ayurvedic medicine. In my family, we boil the fresh turmeric root with other medicinals such as ginger and garlic and take it as medicine for colds. I learned this recipe from a healer in Peru and my dad tweaked it by adding fresh turmeric root to the mix.

Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia)

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Vanilla is an orchid. I first saw this orchid while wading in a palm swamp in the Peruvian Amazon. These are the same palm swamps where you can spot Anaconda snakes, if you are lucky! Vanilla plants are stunning, especially the one I saw flowering. 

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

We don’t eat the flower, however; we eat extracts from vanilla seeds or pods (pictured on right).

Vanilla is native to Mexico and was used by Indigenous people such as the Aztec people to flavour a drink made from chocolate (cacao) beans. The website of Kew, a famous botanical garden, reported that vanilla is also a medicine with anti-microbial and antioxidant properties. Because of the spice trade, vanilla has become a staple in kitchens all over the world. Spanish people took vanilla to Europe in the 1500s. Much later in the 1800s vanilla was taken to Madagascar. Today, most of the vanilla we buy is from Madagascar, Indonesia, or Mexico.

If you have spice queries, feel free to ask them here in comments section of this blog post and I’ll try my best to find the answers. 

Corn Smut, Cuitlacoche or Mexican Truffle, is there a difference?

Courtesy of Stu Spivak, wikimedia commons

On August 9th the world will celebrate the United Nations International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. I am celebrating early and paying my deep respects to the foods Indigenous farmers developed. One of those foods is a fungus called Cuitlacoche. 

If you have eaten in Mexico, you may have tried this tasty fungus creeping out of the ears of corn. Cuitlacoche (Ustilago maydis), is pronounced cuitla-KO-che or Huitlacoche (with a silent H). The Spanish name Cuitacoche is adapted from a Nahuatl name and my internet searches tell me the closest literal English translation for this word might be something like "Sleeping/Hibernating Dirt/Excrement". 

What's in a name?  

One reason why this Nahuatl name is important is because it tells us about this fungus's cultural roots. Nahuatl is the language of Nahua peoples (also known as Aztec people) whose speakers reside mainly in communities of Central Mexico.The Nahua were likely one of the first peoples to describe the fungus Cuitlacoche. 

I must disclose, the first time I tried Cuitlacoche was in Washington D.C., not in Mexico. Like many big cities, the D.C. foodscape is diverse and finding a Cuitlacoche quesadilla was surprisingly easy. All I had to do was take a trip to Adams Morgan and there I was quickly drawn into a quaint Mexican restaurant adorned with beautiful posters of Puebla and Pozole. When I saw Cuitlacoche quesadillas on the menu, I took the plunge. While explaining that Cuitlacoche has a strong flavour, the owner politely tried to sway my decision to the tacos or the tortas mexicanas. I insisted on the Cuitlacoche. 

Courtesy of Cuauhtemoc Ramirez, wikimedia commons 

I had a tecate and talked to the owner about Colima, a small state in Mexico where I lived about 10 years ago. Shortly into our conversation, I was presented with Cuitlacoche fungus in between two handmade corn tortillas. If I didn't look close enough I could have mistaken it for black refried beans. Upon close inspection I noticed tiny yellow corn kernels mixed into a dark purple mash called Cuitlacoche. 

I loved it, it had a hearty, earthy taste, it was not too overpowering, and it went surprisingly well with salsa and guacamole. 

As I ate, I wondered if my Cuitlacoche was grown locally or was shipped from Mexico. Although it may come as a surprise, Cuitlacoche is grown in the U.S. by many farmers, but not on purpose. Cuitlachoche in the U.S. is considered a disease called Corn Smut. Because Corn Smut is a U.S. pest, non-Indigenous farmers there spend their time thinking about killing, not cooking, this fungus. I felt safe to say the fungus on my plate in Washington D.C. was imported.

Cuitlacoche in a Oaxaca supermarket, wikimedia commons

Out of curiosity, I asked the owner where he gets his Cuitlacoche. "You can get anything in D.C.", he answered, looking shocked that I didn't know this fact. In Mexico, I had seen this fungus sold fresh, but he told me in D.C. it comes packaged, conveniently, in a can. This explains why you can order Cuitlacoche in many places and in many different dishes, including soups, crepes, and even fondues. 

As foodies transform Indigenous food recipes, their food names can change. Food enthusiasts are looking for an English name, beyond Corn Smut, to describe Cuitlacoche. Mexican Truffle and Aztec Caviar have been suggested. I agree with foodies that the name Corn Smut does not sound appetizing, but what is wrong with the Nahuatl name? Why are we searching for names that detach foods from their Indigenous roots? 

My vote is to keep the name Cuitlacoche. When Cuitlacoche becomes the Mexican Truffle we lose track of this fungus's history. The name Cuitlacoche links us to a people and a rich history of food tradtions. The name Mexican Truffle, like the label "Mexican Cuisine", tells us nothing about the diversity of foods and peoples within a region. The name Aztec Caviar is more culturally-descriptive. But the name Aztec Caviar still removes the Nahualt lanuage from the picture. 

There is something to be said for using an Indigenous word when ordering a food. When I ask for a Cuitlacoche quesadilla I articulate diversity using different sounds. When I hear these unique sounds, like "cui" or "tla", I am eager to learn the stories behind them. When I ask for Aztec Caviar, I can easily mistake this name for a quirky English label and not give a second thought to its first farmers. 

When I eat, whether in a city or around a fire far from urban life, I remember Indigenous farmers. I remember the foods their ancestors developed and I respect the foods Indigenous farmers produce for us today. Without Indigenous peoples, none of us new-age foodies know about Cuitlacoche. Let's celebrate the World's Indigenous Peoples and call Indigenous foods by their first names. 

______

Does anyone have a story about the Nahuatl word Cuitlacoche or about how this fungus is prepared by Nahua and other Indigenous peoples? If so, please share it in the comments section below. 

Cultural Uses of Coconuts in Zanzibar

I welcome a guest post from Sarah Halpern; at the end of the post is a beautiful photo journey of how Zanzibari people craft rope out of coconuts. 

My name is Sarah Halpern and I live in Charleston, South Carolina.  I work for the International Society of Ethnobiology.  I recently spent time studying the coconut palm in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

While traveling throughout Zanzibar, I quickly realized that much of the economy and tradition of the area relies heavily on the coconut palm. It is the most sustainable tree in the world. The coconut palm is used in almost every occupation, domestic uses, cooking, and various traditions.  My study took place primarily in the Northwestern Region of Unguja Island in Zanzibar in the villages of Mangapwani, Bumbwini, Fujoni, and Zingwezingwe.

There are disputes concerning how the coconut palm arrived in East Africa. It is believed to have originated in the Southwest Pacific and introduced in Madagascar by sailors in the 1^st century AD.  It is also speculated that it was brought to Zanzibar by Arab traders and other sea faring travelers for sustenance and commercial use. Both travelers and locals have been utilizing the sweet, naturally desalinated, and uncontaminated drinking water of a coconut in the tropics for centuries. Additionally, many wild species have been found on the fringes of the Indian and Pacific Oceans implying that the tree could very well be indigenous to East Africa.  This particular idea is supported in “Perplus of the Erythraean Sea,” written in 60 AD, in which Perplus mentions the town of Rhapta, located off of the coast of present day Tanzania, where coconuts were used for trade.The name of the town, derived from the Greek/Arab word “to sew,” came about because the Arab boats were sewn together using coconut fibers.  In fact, the entire ship, the hull, masts, ropes, stitches, and even sails, was once made entirely from coconut products.  

In Zanzibari tradition, various parts of the coconut are used throughout one’s life cycle.  At the very beginning of life, a new born is blessed with coconut oil to ask God for blessings and property.  Throughout life, coconut leaves are used to make fences for various celebrations, such as weddings.  And finally, the coconut water is used to cleanse corpses before burial.

One of the most profitable professions in Zanzibar is the ownership of a shamba, an area of land covered by coconut palms.  This profession is acquired by Islamic Laws of Inheritance, meaning mostly by men. The men are responsible for hiring people to harvest the coconuts, which are then sold to various markets. Harvesting is done by using small ropes to climb the trees and cut down the fruit.They are known for singing a song about strength while climbing.  I found that most of the shamba owners in that area did little to no planting of trees on their land. 

Stonetown, the main port city of Zanzibar, is also known for its elaborate wooden doors made from the wood of the coconut palm. Therefore, carpentry is a traditional profession, passed down usually within the family. The leftover wood from the carpenters is usually used to make limestone, which can be used for building and painting.

Another traditional practice by men in Zanzibar is the domestic handicraft of upawa (seen below), a spoonlike creation used for cooking.  The coconut palm plays a large role in cooking in general as well.  The coconut is a staple in Swahili diet. It is considered the “soul food of the tropics.” The coconut palm is also used in the actual cooking process.  Trunk and coconut husks are collected and used as fuel, fish is often placed on folded coconut leaves, nyaliyo, rather than directly over a fire, in order to obtain more flavor and to prevent the fish from burning.  The stem of the leaf can be used as a stake to hold fish and vegetables over a fire as well. The leaves from the tree were once very helpful in drying out cassava, however this is not practiced anymore because whole palm leaves are more difficult to find.

The coconut and other parts of the tree are commonly used in recipes. Shredding the coconut meat, mixing with water, and straining multiple times make coconut milk, which is combined with many main courses. Coconut milk can also functions as a replacement for oil because of its high fat content. Kitale, the white coconut leaf bud is eaten like a vegetable and mixed into salads. Mbata, an overripe coconut, is also eaten as a delicious snack. Mbata, however, have become more difficult to find because of the overharvesting of coconuts.

A traditional job amongst women in the villages of Zanzibar is the creation of roofing materials for all homes, hotels, and fences. This is a particularly high paying job, however leaves are in constant demand and the profession is becoming more popular, creating a sense of negative competition among women.  

However many women also have taken part in the traditional ways of making rope. This job brings a great amount of pride for women as it is very physical. Women bury the coconut husks for a year in mud covered plains, then dig up the husks and beat them until they are broken down into string. The string is then carried home on large bulks to be twisted into rope. This process is shown below:

 A shamba owner hires a man to de-husk the coconuts from his land.

 An elderly member of the village makes a living by using a small piece of rope to climb trees 30-40 ft high to cut down the coconuts.

Upawa - a spoon like tool made from various parts of the coconut.  Made by men, but used more so by women in the Zanzibari kitchen.

A Zanzibari woman digging up her coconut husks from the "desert."  This is the first part of the rope making process, a profession done by women.  The husks are left to soak in the mud for a year to soften.

This is the second part of the rope making process where women beat out the soften husks into thin string.

The final part of the rope making process is done from the home. Women carry back the large piles of string and tie specific types of knots to make strong rope. This rope is used for everything from fishing, packaging, etc.

What is a Rat Tail Radish?

Rat Tail Radish Pod (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

How many of us have started gardening and found plants of unknown origin appear in our gardens? At least one blog reader can relate. Nina Steen from Greenwood Lake, NY, sent this picture to my inbox in an email labeled Mystery Plant.

Nina's Rat Tail Radish plant in flower (courtesy of Nina Steen)

This plant was in her cilantro labeled pot, but, as you can see it looks nothing like cilantro. Nina contacted me as well as many others to figure out this mystery. Here is a pretty convincing response from Stacey Lawrence 

"This is definitely a rat tail radish or Raphanus caudatus. Where ever did you pick this up Nina? This fella isn't usually grown for its flowers but rather the eatable pods it produces in late summer. The taste similar to a radish flavour and are big in Asia cooking. Pick them while they're young or they get hard and nasty quickly."

Mystery solved, this plant is Raphanus caudatus, literally meaning radish with a tail. Thanks to Nina and Stacey, I learned this tail is edible! In fact, these radish pods may have more culinary uses than the well-known radish root. Pods can be used fresh in salads, steamed, boiled, stir-fried, or pickled. A recipe submitted to the Washington Post suggests crisping them up in olive oil; another food blogger suggests putting them in salad with tomatoes. 

Although this plant was unknown to Nina and I, it has been around a long time. The Missouri Botanical Garden reports that Greeks and Romans were the first to write about the culinary uses of these radishes. But just where did Greeks and Romans get their hands on these pods? 

Botanists believe that radishes that contain pods come from China because this is where wild varieties of the plant can still be found. From China and Greece radishes somehow made their way to Americas soon after Columbus. These tangy vegetables became so important in Mexico (in Oaxaca specifically) that this vegetable is celebrated there on La Noche de los Rabanos (The Night of the Radish) every December 23rd. This festival uses the radish root I'm more familiar with to carve sculptures and to make Mexican treats such as radish empanadas and tamales.

Nina confessed to me that she is looking to give away her rat tail because she does not like radishes. I agree that radish roots are pungent and not for everyone but some chefs claim that radish pods have a more delicate flavour. Either way, I am looking forward to tasting these pods because radishes are one of my favourite vegetables. I remember my grandfather used to put them out as summer snacks with salt, definitely a healthier treat then the chips and other crispy things I encounter more often as time passes. 

Please share any of your rat tail recipes in the comments section of this blog; if you have any pictures of your cooking, I would love to post them on the blog. 

Sharing my story: why I work with people and plants

As part of my involvement in the International Society of Ethnobiology, I was asked "why did you become an ethnobiologist?" Ethnobiology refers to the study of people and biology or people and their environment. I identify myself as an ethnobiologist because I work with people and plants. Although many factors led to my ethnobiology career path, I answered this question with a few important ones. You can find my story on the Emerging Ethnobiologists blog and I have re-posted it here: 

My Story: 

1) Why did you become an ethnobiologist?

Becoming an ethnobiologist was a process. I grew up gardening with my grandmother and exploring forests in Canada with my dad. Spending time outdoors with my family cultivated my interest in plants, the wild, the farmed, and the medicinal.

Camping in the Canadian Rocky Mountains (1986)

When I began university, I did not study ethnobotany. Instead, I explored classes in chemistry and Spanish. Perhaps, it was when I moved to Latin America - first for an exchange program and later for work and play - that my studies and my life-projects came together under the guise of ethnobotany. 

In Latin America - boating through the Peruvian Amazon and working on Costa Rican farms - I became more dedicated to the connections between people and plants. When I began my Masters degree at the University of Costa Rica, I took my first ethnobotany course.

A trip on Eduardo II in the Peruvian Amazon (2005)

Cooking peach palm flowers in Talamanca, Costa Rica (2012)

2) What is one of the most memorable experiences from your work?

My most memorable experiences happened while cultivating a collaborative partnership and friendship  with Bribri women in Talamanca, Costa Rica; this friendship began with my doctoral research and continues through a mutual project we developed on organic coffee farming. It is with these women I feel I have learned most of what I need to know to live - contently - in this world.  

3) What is your future plan?

In the immediate future, my plan is to finish writing my thesis. Afterwards, I hope to continue to collaborate with women and youth on ethnobotany projects and to teach ethnobiology. Right now I am brainstorming about ethnobiology courses and seminars I would like to teach; these include courses on qualitative research methods and the ethnobiology of food and a seminars on cross-cultural research partnerships.

Yerba Mate, Mate de Coca, what are they?

Yerba Mate, a tea made from the tree Ilex paraguariensis, met my palate this afternoon when I was searching for an alternative to my bottomless coffee cup. I found Yerba Mate on a list of loose teas offered at my local coffee shop. The name Mate brought me back to the year 2000. That year, I was also sitting in a coffee shop sipping Mate, albeit at a much higher altitude. I was in La Paz, Bolivia and there Mate is referred to as Mate de Coca. Mate de Coca is a refreshing and energizing tea made from steeping the leaves of a different plant, the infamous Coca plant (Erythroxylum coca). I'm indebted to the Bolivian Coca plant and one Bolivia lady who helped me cure an allergy with Coca leaves. The Bolivian lady taught me to bite the Coca leaves to release medicinal components and place them on my face where I suffered from this allergy, the picture below shows the severity. I was allergic to alpaca fur but I mistook my allergy symptoms for those of a common cold. As my allergies became worse, ironically, I kept warm by hiding in layers and layers of alpaca-fur coats and blankets. If I'm ever near Alpaca again, I'll carry Coca leaves with me!

I expected these two similar sounding teas to taste alike. To my surprise Yerba Mate tasted nothing like Mate de Coca. Unlike Coca's mild flavour, I found Yerba Mate to be bitter with a hard to describe aftertaste. For lack of a better comparison, the Yerba Mate aftertaste vaguely resembled the flavour of tobacco. 

Because I am fascinated by where plants come from I couldn't pass up the opportunity to find out what plant I was drinking. With the help of wikipedia's invisible scholars, I learned that Ilex paraguaiensis (Yerba Mate) is a forest plant found in the southern parts of South America, in Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. When you order a Yerba Mate, you are likely savouring leaves from tea plantations or from trees planted in their native forest habitats. Like the popular green tea, Yerba Mate leaves are processed before they hit your teapot. The main difference between Mate and green tea is the drying method. Mate is dried slowly using wood smoke and green tea is dried fast at high temperatures. 

Content to know what I was drinking, my curiosity turned to the human beings who first found this plant and decided it was good to drink. I'm rarely successful finding this type of information online, and this time was no exception. I'm convinced we rarely read about the people behind plants because those writing about ethnobotany are mostly  pharmaceutical researchers. As an ethnobotanist, I am often associated with pharmaceutical work too. For example, just in the last week a few people have assumed I work for a pharmaceutical company when I mentioned I'm an ethnobotanist. 

From the little information available, I read that Yerba Mate tea was first used by the Guaraní people of South America. I can't be sure of my sources, but it appears that when this tea was discovered by Jesuit priests, these priests tried to stop Indigenous peoples from drinking it (maybe because of its perceived demonic properties). However, the Jesuits that came in contact with Yerba Mate must have liked something about it because this tea made it all over Europe, quick. The desire for Yerba Mate is a story waiting to be told; I think it would make a good project for Michael Pollan and his work on the Botany of Desire. 

Although its medicinal properties were no doubt clearly known by the Guarani people, western science has found Yerba Mate to be good to treat parasites, high cholesterol, and inflammation; it also has caffeine in it so I guess this wasn't my best choice for a coffee substitute.

You say tomato, I say Banana Leg

This is a guest post by David Steen; David researches the ecology and conservation biology of wildlife and blogs about his work at www.LivingAlongsideWildlife.com.

Kellogg’s Breakfast

The giant orange tomato dwarfed my hand and its bulbous sides overflowed my palm. As I manhandled the giant fruit out of the back of the farmer’s pickup, I gave the man, leaning on the back of the truck, an inquisitive look.

            He replied, “Now that’s an heirloom tomato.”

            Perhaps he wasn’t used to people wanting to know more, but I did. As I checked out the orange orb, I asked,

            “What’s it called?”

            “Kellogg’s Breakfast.”

            The farmer and I collectively chuckled at the ridiculous name for this variety of tomato before he added,

            “Sometimes I look through seed catalogs and order ones that look interesting.”

            His response brought to my mind a stereotype I have of the American farmer, that of the man in the straw hat forever toiling on a tractor in a homogenous and monotonous field of wheat. Of course, that isn’t necessarily the reality. Farmers, both men and women, can be creative people that are enthusiastic about their work and always interested in trying to grow new things and with different strategies. I wondered if part of the reason this particular farmer raised peculiar varieties of tomatoes was to see the reaction on people’s faces when they strolled through the farmers market. I hope mine didn’t disappoint.

            I later learned that these tomatoes earned their name because of their color, which brings to mind orange juice, often served during breakfast, as well as the fact that someone in Michigan named Kellogg is credited for introducing the variety. Okay, I thought, I can go along with that. However, I did note to myself the irony of giving an heirloom (i.e., not mass produced) tomato a name that brings to mind a mega-corporation that facilitates industrial agriculture and produces what they call food on an assembly line (at least, that’s how they do it in my imagination).

Banana Leg

            Another tomato he was selling included a yellow and elongated variety known as a Banana Leg. I confirmed with him that I could save the seeds from these tomatoes and grow them myself in the future. Sure, he replied. I’m looking forward to it.

Frankenstein

            Checking out the options at a nearby truck, I noticed a Frankenstein of a tomato. It was red, which is relatively conventional, but huge and misshapen.

            “What happened here?” I asked the woman at the stand.

            “Looks like two tomatoes just started growing together.”

            I don’t know if that’s really what happened or not, but she was right in that that’s what it looked like. Into the tote bag it went, as did a bin of cherry tomatoes.

            Later that day, while looking at the motley crew of yellow, orange, red, and Siamese-twin assortment of locally produced tomatoes I had acquired, I thought about how much we lose when we automatically think of a tomato as the uniformly-colored red and perfectly shaped object we mechanically throw in the shopping cart when we hit the grocery store. We’re not just losing weird colors and shapes, but we completely miss out on all kinds of new tastes and textures.

            It doesn’t have to be that way. The food we eat doesn’t have to be just the items that are most cost-effective for companies to produce and manufacture in bulk. We don’t have to settle for eating the tomatoes that are engineered to look identical (especially because they don’t taste as good!). Making food identical is what fast-food restaurants do with their products because they know people tend to choose the things that they are used to.

            Well, let’s get used to some weird tomatoes! Let’s get used to some non-conformity in our ingredients. If variety truly is the spice of life, don’t hesitate to throw some Banana Legs into the salad you’re having or put some thick, orange slices of Kellogg’s Breakfast onto that sandwich for lunch.

            Whenever I extol the virtues of these locally produced fruits and vegetables, someone is surely to bring up (or at least think about) how the costs of these items are prohibitively expensive. Well, I’m pleased to note that they’re not at the farmers market that I go to. And, I suspect that if you purchase your food from local farmers instead of from the grocery store (which, in all likelihood, ships in that food from all over the world), you will be pleasantly surprised at the price tag. It’s moot as far as I’m concerned though, I don’t know why the cost should even be a consideration when you’re talking about what you decide to put into your body. If you have an income, then you can afford to buy good food. You can compromise on other things.

            Have you had any luck growing Banana Legs or Kellogg’s Breakfast tomatoes? Tips appreciated.

Fermenting Tomato Pulp to Save the Seeds