Aloe vera (Aloe vera)

Aloe vera is one of only a handful of plants that almost everyone can identify by genus and species.

Most people have never thought of eating it, though.

I have to admit that I never considered eating aloe until I started this project. Ever since I started cruising the grocery store for new species, though, those long spiky leave have been taunting me.

Aloe vera is widely used in cosmetics and skin creams. Growing up, we always had an aloe plant on the kitchen window sill. I remember my mom squeezing out its sticky sap to sooth minor kitchen burns. Hers and mine.

Aloe is a succulent, which means it is adapted to survive in very arid environments. The leaves of a well watered aloe plant swell and become taut. Conversely, they become limp as the plant uses the water stored within its leathery leaves.

Aloe is thought to originate in nothern Africa, but the plant is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant throughout much of the world. As far as I know, it is not widely considered to be a food crop anywhere. In fact, several sources note that aloe should not be used a bulk food. But the gel – the same part used in cosmetics – is considered edible. And there are some very enthusiastic online supporters of aloe as a food.

After getting mine home, I ran stright to the internet to find out what to do with it. Basically, it's a matter of peeling off the leather skin and cutting the gel into cubes. The gel is incredibly sticky which makes peeling it somewhat challenging. I made a slit with a knife and then used a peeler to reveal the gel.

When cooked, the aloe vera cubes have a tangy flavor and a texture that is somewhat akin to very firm but slimy Jell-O jigglers. It's not bad as a yogurt topping.

It did detect a faintly alkaline – almost soapy – aftertaste, though... Of course, that may just be an association with my wife's face cream.

Aloe Vera Gel

one large aloe vera leave, peeled and cubed

¼ cup sugar

juice of 1/2 lemon or one lime

In a small sauce pot, cook the aloe cubes over medium low heat with sugar and lemon or lime juice. As it begins to cooks, the aloe will release its liquid. Stirring occassionally, cook until the aloe has reduced in volume by approximately half (5 to 10 minutes).

Serve – warm or cold – over yogurt.

Allium tuberosum (Jiu cai or Chinese garlic chives)

In celebration of Chinese New Year, today we had my hands-down favorite Chinese vegetable: Allium tuberosum, known in English as 'garlic chives' and in Chinese as 'jiu cai.'

I still vividly remember the first time I have jiu cai. When I was studying abroad in Nanjing in 1998, my Chinese teacher took me and another student out lunch for jiao-zi – Chinese boiled dumplings. I had maybe been in the country for 10 days and the long list of dumpling fillings baffled me. But I quickly learn the characters for jiu cai. I think Tyson and I ate 7 plates of jiu cai dumplings that day.

The English name – 'garlic chive' – is apt. Like chives and onions, jiu cai is a member of the Allium genus. The plant is grown and harvested like chives. And it had a rich, full flavor that somewhat resembles garlic. Like garlic, it also has a persistent aftertaste that hangs with you for a while.

I consider that a virtue.

I've had good luck finding jiu cai in Chinese and Korean grocers. The jiu cai I got at Hong Kong Market here in Portland comes from specialty grower in Massachusetts. Jiu cai shows up in a number of Chinese dishes, but it mostly closely associated with dumplings.

Chinese dumplings are typically made with ground pork. For the recipe below, I prepared a 'vegetarian' version with egg. Half of the fun of dumplings is filling them. We had a Chinese New Year party: filling dumpling together as a family. There's really no wrong way to fill them – so long as you don't put in too much filling.

The kids had a blast filling and decorating their own dumplings – although Ezra, my carbo-holic – didn't care for the jiu cai. And I pretty sure he filled at least one dumpling with plain white rice...

Veggie Jiu Cai Dumplings

4 cups jiu cai, chopped

4 eggs

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

sesame oil

salt

50 dumpling wrappers

a bowl of water water

1. Finely chop the jiu cai and set aside.

2. Liberally line the bottom of a frying pan with sesame oil over a medium heat. Whisk the eggs and add to the warm pan with the chopped garlic.

3. After 30 seconds or so, add the chopped jiu cai. Turn once, and remove from heat. The eggs should be cooked, but still moist. Sprinkle with salt to taste.

4. Hold a dumpling wrapper in one hand. With the other hand, spoon in a small amount of dumpling filling into the center of the wrapper.

5. Dip your fingers in the water and paint a circle around the edge of the dumpling wrapper. Fold the wrapper in half and pinch it shut. It doesn't have to look pretty, but it does have to be sealed.

6. Set aside filled dumplings on a plate until you have 10 or 20 dumplings.

7. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. When the water is boiling, add the filled dumplings and boil for 3 to 5 minutes.

I tend to put the dumplings in a strainer and lower the strainer into the hot water as this makes it easier to fish them out later. It's also important to stir the dumplings once they are in the water so that they don't stick together.

8. Serve hot with a bowl of vinegar to dip them in. If I don't have Chinese dark vinegar, I use one part balsamic and one part water with a little bit of sesame oil.

Note: You can make your own wrappers. But rolling them out is a pain in the neck. For my money, the premade dumpling wrappers at most Chinese grocers are a bargain at $1.25 for 50.

Valerianella locusta (Mâche)

Mâche (Valerianella locusta), also known as 'corn salad' has an almost mythical reputation among year-round farmer and gardeners in the northeast. Elliott Coleman speaks highly of mâche's virtues – most notably it's ability to survive extremely cold temperatures – in Four Season Harvest. Mâche is one of the few plants that continues to grow even in the cold, low-light environment of a Maine winter.

I had heard of mâche before, but I'd never eaten. In fact, I tried growing mâche one fall in a cold frame. I thought I had done something wrong. It turns out that mâche is just a really small plant.

The mâche I bought at the Portland Winter Farmers Market yesterday had been pulled out of the ground that very morning. Mâche's other virtue is that the plant perks right up even after a hard frost that wilts other hardy winter greens. The young man who sold it to me recommended frying up some bacon, and lightly sauting the mâche in the retained bacon grease and then serving it drizzled with baslamic vinegar and bacon bits.

Not a bad idea.

I went for simple vegetarian salad instead, though. The mâche itself had a pleasant, leafy flavor. I was expecting spicy or bitter notes, but it's really just a pleasant, mild green. Quite tasty. I will eat more.

Mâche Salad

2 cups mâche (whole)

2 tbsp sunflower seed
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
2 tbps onion, finely chopped
dried cranberries
olive oil
maple syrup
balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper

1. Toast the sunflower seeds in a dry pan over a medium high heat. They continue cooking after removed from the heat, so pay attention and remove them heat the heat as soon as they start to brown. Set aside.

2. Drizzle olive oil in the warm pan. Add whole, washed mâche plants. Saute for 30 second to 1 minute, just until the mâche starts to wilt. Remove from heat and drizzle with balsmic vinegar, maple syrup and salt and pepper (optional).

3. Place the warm sald on a serving plate and add the other ingredients.

Lactuca sativa (Lettuce)

Supermarkets are not set up to enable customers to shop by species.

No single commodity better exemplifies this than salad greens. Iceberg, romaine, red leaf, bibb, Boston, buttercrunch, butterhead, and oakleaf are all varieties of a single species: Lactuca sativa.

On the flip side, a single package of mesclun – a term that simply means 'mixed' – may contain over a dozen species. My 'Johnny's Selected Seed' calatog this year lists 17 different species of salad greens in addition to L. sativa. And that's not counting spinach and chard varieties or microgreens.

The variation in cultivars of L. sativa has something to do with its long history of cultivation. Pictures of lettuce appear on the tomb of Senusret I, who ruled Egypt in 20^th centruy BC. Cultivation of L. sativa certainly goes back longer than that.

Botanically, it's a member of the Asteraceae – or daisy – family. The genus name (lactuca) derives from the Latin word for milk, a refence to the plant's whitish sap. In the Middle Ages, lettuce sap was sometime added to beer as a bitter principle. Some sources cite its medicinal qualities. Others cite it as highly inebriating. Either way, it must do something good, because it's got to be a pain in the neck to collect any quantity.

In China, the stems and leaves are sometime served as a cooked vegetable – often steamed with oyster sauce. But most lettuce is cultivated and eaten as a fresh, leaf vegetable. That's how I usually eat. For my species today, I just through some red leaf lettuce in a salad.

Bactris gasipaes (Heart of palm)

Bactris gasipaes is one of several species for palm trees – all members of the Areceae family – that is cultivated for its 'hearts of palm.'

The 'heart' of the palm is the tender center of young palm shoots. Shoots, which may several feet to a couple of yard long, are encased in a woody exterior that is stripped to reveal the 'heart.'

Some of the other species of palm that are commercially harvested for 'heart of palm' include Cocos nucifera (coconut) and Uterpe oleracea (acai palm). But B. gasipaes is one the main species that winds up in 'heart of palms.' This is in part because the root mass is able to produce numerous shoots which can be harvested without significantly harming the plant.

It may also have something to do with the fact that the fruit of B. gasipaes is not particularly tasty (to humans) or useful (for oil extraction).

In North America, heart of palms are most common as a salad topper. They get more use in other parts of the world – notably Brazil, where heart of palm shows up in a lot of dishes. And also in Costa Rica: one of my favorites heart of palm recipes is a Costa Rican heart of palm soup.

Even near the source, people usually don't eat heart of palm fresh. They are typically canned in brine. As a result they can be surprisingly salty. The other difficulty of cooking with heart of palm is that their delicate flavor is easily over powered.

I do like them as a pizza topping, though. And since I didn't have time to pull together a soup today, that's how we had them.

Medicago sativa (Alfafa)

Perhaps I should start off be saying that I like sprouts. I am aware that my high opinion of sprouts is not universally held.

Nevetheless, I enjoy sprouts for several reasons. Most notably, I can grow them on my window sill all winter long and obviate (at least partially) the need to buy lettuce flown in from Calfornia or Mexico. I also enjoy the nutty, wholesome flavor that many sprouts have – otherwise I wouldn't eat them, however, environmentally conscious it may be.

For my purposes this year, sprouts have a notable additional virtue: many plant species that are barely edible as adult plants are quite tasty as tender, young sprouts. Medicago sativa (alfalfa) is a textbook example of this.

M. sativa is a herbaceous member of the Fabaceae family, which includes beans and peas. Virtually all alfalfa is cultivated as a forage crop for livestock. Alfalfa is relatively high in protein. The mature plants survive multiple hayings each year and it stores well as hay or silage. Individual alfalfas plants can survive in the field up to 20 years, which saves farmers on seeding. And since alfalfa is a legume it has a benefit shared by other members of the Fabaceae family: when incoulated with diazotrophic bacteria, the plant forms root nodules that adfix atmospheric nitrogen. In other words, growing aflafla actually enriches the soil.

At home, sprouting alfalfa seeds is simple enough. I start off soaking one or two tablespoons of seeds in a water glass for an hour (up to over night). Each morning after breakfast, I thoroughly rinse the sprouts with cold water, drain off as much water as possible and return them to the same glass. Within 5 to 7 days, I've got a nice little crop of sprouts.

While they are one of the most recognizable species of sprouts, I do have to say that alfalfa is not my favorite. (That honor goes to red clover, another forage crop). However, alfalfa is one of the easiest species of plants to sprout. I can't recall ever having had a batch of alfalfa go bad on me – something I can't say about larger seeds such as lentils or mung beans.

In the winter, I mostly use sprouts as a subsititute for lettuce on my sandwichs. Today's sandwich: alfalfa sprouts with onions slices mustard and herring filets on whole wheat bread.

Really, it's better than it sounds.

Petroselium hortense (Parsley)

Petroselium hortense is a member of the Apiaceae family, which also includes carrots and parsnips. Come to think of it, parsley greens do look a little bit like carrot greens, don't they?

Like carrots and parsnips, some varieties - known as Hamburg parsley - are cultivated for their roots. I haven't tried this variety yet, but it sounds interesting.

Most parsley is grown for its greens. The two major varieties are Italian flat-leaved parsley and curly parsley. The former are for eating, the latter purely for show.

Some of the flavor of parsley survives drying, and it is often sold as a dried herb. But it is so much better fresh. And it is never better than fresh from the garden. I have a small patch of parsley outside my kitchen door that comes back each spring just after snow thaws – well before any other early greens establish themselves. I eagerly await those first fresh parsley greens. Supermarket parsley seems a pale imitation. But as with hot-house tomatoes, I can't bring myself to forgo all winter.

And given the flavors fresh parsley adds to soups and stuffing, it's really not worth forgoing. For it to count as my species of the day, I need to eat a full cup, though. That would be a lot of stuffing. If you want to take in any quantity of parsley, there's really only one way to go: taboule. Here's my recipe.

Taboule

This makes enough for a couple of lunches. I add sunflower seeds for a little protein.

1 cup bulgur wheat

1 ½ cups boiling water

1 tsp salt

3 cups parsley, chopped

2 tomatoes, diced

4 spring onions, chopped

¼ cup fresh mint, chopped

¼ cup sunflower seeds (optional)

juice of one lemon

olive oil

1. Combine bulgur wheat and salt in a mixing boil. Add boiling water and let stand for at least 30 minutes.

2. Once most of the water have been absorbed, add all other ingredients and mix well.

3. Place in the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes, but up to 24 hours. Fluff gently with a fork before serving.

Citrus maxima (Pomelo)

I have discovered the secret that the pomelo industry doesn't want you to know: it's just a bland grapefruit with a really thick skin.

That may not be entirely fair. I'd never had a pomelo before. And I did find it tasty. It was both less bitter and less sour than a standard ruby grapefruit, but still had that pleasant piney, citrus flavor.

But underneath that giant rind, $2.99 worth of pomelo only amounts to the same amount of fruit as a $1.29 grapefruit. (See photo below: fruit on left, rind on right).

I'll be sticking with the grapefruit from here on out.

Annona cherimola (Cherimoya)

The grocery store's product tag describes cherimoyas as having a “complex flavor that combines elements of banana and pineapple.” Having tried – and enjoyed – its close relative A. muricata (soursop), I thought I'd given A. cherimola a try.

Cherimoyas, like soursops, are native to the New World. They grow throughout much of Latin America and parts of the United States. The cherimoya I got came from California. It suffered a little it on the journey to the Maine. And it suffered a bit more on the trip back to my house from the grocery store. Cherimoyas' skins are thinner and less leathery that soursops'. The fruit is also juicier. Neither of these characteristics helped it survive being wedged under a carton of milk.

The bruising - squashing, really - did little to damage the flavor, though. In my opinion, it definitely lived up to its supermarket description. It was juicier and richer than the soursop. I slurped it up with a spoon. Kind of like a pina colada in a peel. Yum.

Sambucus canadensis (Elderberry)

If a leeks are a comfort of winter, elderberries are the quintessence of late summer. Ripe clusters of the the fruit weigh down S. canadensis's flexible branches when the evenings first turn crisp in late summer.

Their relative abundance in August and September makes elderberries a perennial favorite of wine makers. To my mind, it is also well worth the effort to put some away in a simple preserve. Few foods call up the flavors of summer on a cold winter's day better than elderberry preserve.

I was reminded of that this morning at breakfast as a I smeared yogurt, elderberry preserve, and syrup on my waffles. We're staying with friends who have both elderberry bushes and a waffle maker. I'm jealous on both counts.

Chloe always puts away several quart jars of elderberry preserve. Here's her recipe.

Note: Elderberries are not always easy find in the supermarket. I have better luck at farmers' markets.

Chloe's Elderberry Jam

4 cups mashed elderberries
2 tsp Pomona Pectin
1/3 cup raw honey
4 tsp calcium water (comes in the pectin package)

1. Bring fruit and calcium water to a boil.

2. Mix pectin powder with honey. Add to fruit and return to a boil. Simmer 10 to 20 minutes.

3. Remove from heat. Pour into sterilized jars. Cap with sterilized lids.

4. Boil in a water bath for 10 minutes.

Ananas comosus (Pineapple)

Today was a pineapple day, largely because we're traveling and it was easy to cut up some pineapple chunks for the road.

As ubiquitous as pineapples are, they are noteworthy as a rare opportunity to eat a bromeliad. There are over 1,200 species of bromeliads – members of the Bromeliaceae family. Most are inedible and survive only in tropical and subtropical climates. The family is most famous for numerous species of epiphytes, non-parasitic plants that grow on other trees, bushes, shrubs... really just about any other surface in a warm humid place. Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is perhaps that example that will be most familiar to North Americans.

Bromeliads also include a large number of terrestrial species, of which A. comosus is one. The plant is ingedigenous to South America, but it is has become widely propagated throughout the tropics. Perhaps on account of its sweetness, it has also found a home the cuisines of places as far flung as Hawaii and West Africa.

A. comosus itself is surprising small given the size of its fruit. A full grown pineapple plant is only 5 or 6 feet tall. I know several people who have successfully grown pineapples, starting them from the leaves at the top of a fresh pineapple fruit. My attempts at this have always resulted in a putrid, bluish-green moldy disaster.

Oh well, there are probaby better things to be growing in this climate anyway...

Allium porrum (Leeks)

A hot bowl of potage au poireau – leek soup – is perhaps my favorite winter comfort.

In much of northern Europe, people commonly to keep a small vegetable garden with a few hardy vegetables that last all winter. In French, these little kitchen gardens are colloquially known as 'potagers' and the pureed soups made from their produce as 'potage.'

Potage au poireau makes use of two hardy staples of the winter potager: leeks and carrots. As a former exchange student to Belgium, I fondly remember being sent out to pull leeks from the semi-frozen earth. (I was not so fond of the task at time). I have equally fond memories warm bowls of potage preceding almost every dinner in the winter months.

Even here in Maine – I'm told – an enterprising gardener can keep leeks in the ground for winter harvest... a sturdy row cover or good snow shovel may come in handy, though.

Leeks are a member of the same genus that includes onions, chives and shallots. They are milder but they lend the same aromatic quality to soups and casseroles. The best use of leeks, though, is in soups and my favorite leek soup is a simple potage.

I like to think of potage a first principle in winter soups: to the basic form, new elements can be added resulting in surprising variation. Currently, my favorite variation is to leave out the carrots and replace the potato with 3 cups of rutabaga and a drizzle of maple syrup.

But most combinations of winter vegetables and simple spicing produce equally tasty results. I've even had excellent potages that included heart of palm and avocado.In winter, I tend to make a large pot most the week-ends and store Ball jars of soup in the fridge for weekday lunches. Here's the basic recipe...

Potage au poireau

3 large leeks

1 large potato, peeled and quartered

2 carrots, chopped

1 tbls butter

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

¼ tsp cloves

salt and pepper

2 to 4 cups water

1. Remove the bottom inch and most of the greens from the leeks. (Retain the greens for use in stocks). Slice the leeks length-wise and carefully clean them. Dirt can find its way surprising far down into the white part of a leek.

2. Melt the butter in a large soup pot. Slice leeks into ½" circles. Cook the leeks over a high heat, stirring occasionally.

3. After a minute or two, add the carrots and potatoes. Continue cooking over high heat until the leeks become limp (about 5 minutes).

4. Add the stock and reduce the heat to medium. Cook another 10 to 15 minutes.

5. When the potatoes and carrots are fully cooked, transfer the soup to a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth.

6. Return the soup to the original soup pot. Add 2 cups of water (for a thicker soup) or 4 cups of water (for a thinner soup). Garnish with ¼ tsp ground cloves and salt and pepper to taste.

Sechium edule (Chayote)

Chayote (Sechium edule) is a funny looking squash.

The back end of the squash looks exactly like an old man without his dentures in.

My first encounter with chayote as food was on our recent trip to Costa Rica. At a lunch buffet, I had a delicious chayote casserole. I later learned that Costa Rica is one of the two global centers of chayote cultivation. (The other is Veracruz, Mexico)

According to Mother Earth News, though, chayote can be grown anywhere with 150 days between hard frosts. One notable characteristic of S. edule is that the seeds germinate inside the gourd - an interesting strategy for retaining enough moisture for germination in a growing environment with a prolonged dry season.

The chayote fruit itself is rather bland. But like many squashes, it takes on flavors well and it has a pleasant richness when cooked. Chayote's texture goes from a pear-like crispness when raw to soft when fully cooked. And since much of flavor comes from how you spice, I rate it as a kid-friendly vegetable.

After due consideration, so do my kids.

Chayote

Serves 4 as a side dish.

one chayote

oil

¼ cup onion, chopped

½ cup corn

¼ cup tamales, chopped

½ cup chicken or vegetable broth

½ cup finely chopped red pepper

salt and pepper to taste

1. Chop the chayote into ½ inch cubes. Heat oil to medium high in a frying pan or medium sauce pot.

2. Cook chayote and onion on medium high until the onions become translucent (about 5 minutes).

3. Add all the other ingredients. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until most of the liquid has cooked off (about 10 minutes).

4. Season and serve.

Cucurbita maxima (Buttercup squash)

From patty pan squash to zucchini (both C. pepo) to pumpkins (var. species) and giant blue Hubbards (C. maxima), only five species account for most of the astonishing variety presented by squashes.

Much of the diversity in hard or winter squashes comes from Cucurbita maxima.

Aside from buttercup squash, C. maxima includes blue hubbard, kabocha, several varieties of pumpkin and a few of those odd looking squashes that look like two different varieties jammed together. C. maxima is a New World species that was first cultivated in the Andes around 4,000 years ago. Throughout much of the Americas, squash and corn were traditionally planted together – vertical cornstalks acting as a natural pole for the vining squash plants. Most varieties mature after 100 days, which tends to be well into the fall in my neck of the woods. And they tend to have a relatively dry, hard flesh that preserves well, making them a good winter food stock.

There are about as many ways to serve squash as there are varieties. One of my favorites is as surprisingly rich as it is simple: bake and serve with crumbled blue cheese and toasted walnuts.

We originally got the idea from NPR, but it has become a family favorite in our household (even though the kids aren't fans of blue cheese). Make sure you take the time to toast the walnuts. It only take a few seconds and it really brings out the flavor. With a side of rice, one smallish buttercup squash fed the four of us for dinner. And we still have bit left over for lunch tomorrow.

Roast Buttercup Squash with Blue Cheese and Toasted Walnuts

one buttercup squash

4 oz crumbled blue cheese

4 oz crushed walnuts

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the squash in half and remove the seeds.

2. Place squash face down on a baking sheet. (Covering the baking sheet with foil or wax paper makes clean up much easier).

3. Bake at 350 degree for 40 minutes to an hour.

4. When the squash is nearly done, toast the crushed walnuts in a dry frying pan on medium heat high. The walnuts with continue to darken after removed from the heat, so make sure put them in a separate bowl as soon as they begin to change color.

5. Sprinkle crumbled blue cheese and toasted walnuts over the roasted squash. I alternate between serving this dish by scooping the squash into a bowl and letting people add their own toppings or just throwing everything together and serving the squash 'on the half shell.'

Nasturtium officinale (Watercress)

Watercress, Nasturtium officinales, is one those vegetables that hangs in the background of our collective consciousness. I had definitely heard of watercress before. I have probably even eaten it on several occasions. But if someone had asked me about watercress this time last week, the odds are good that I would have confused it with water chestnuts.

There's a good reason that watercress resides in our collective consciousness: people have been growing and eating watercress for a long time. A variety of sources cite it as either the oldest or one of the oldest leafy greens cultivated by humanity. Watercress shows up in the writings of Hippocrates, the ancient Persians, and the Talmud. The plant even merits a mention in the Shi Jing, the Chinese 'Book of Songs,' compiled nearly 3,000 years ago. The list of therapeutic properties attributed to watercress is nearly as a long as its literary pedigree. It is reportedly beneficial for people with ailments from rheumatism to hemorrhaging.

There is an equally good reason that watercress has moved to the background of our cultural imagination, though. It doesn't travel well. Watercress is an aquatic or semi-aquatic plant that bruises easily after harvesting. Accordingly, the plant doesn't present itself well on supermarket shelves.

Don't let that put you off, though. Despite being a little bruised and wilted, the watercress I picked up at Hannaford's still had an excellent flavor. I now rate watercress as one of those plants worth seeking out. Even when the leaves are slightly browned, watercress retains a mild nutty flavor. Alone or mixed with other greens, it lends a pleasant rounded flavor to salads – one that I would liken to sunflower shoots.

It tastes 'healthy.' But not in an off-putting way. I'm looking forward to playing around with it in soups and as a cooked vegetable.

Blue Cheese Watercress Salad

3 cups chopped watercress

2 tbls finely chopped onion

3 tbls sunflower seed (toasted, optional)

1 tps anise seed (toasted, optional)

1 tbls spicy mustard

1 tbls maple syrup

oil and vinegar to taste

3 tbls crumbled blue cheese

1. For toasted sunflower and/or anise seeds, bring a dry pan to medium-high heat. Once pan is hot, add seeds and toast for 30 seconds to one minute, stirring. Remove from heat as soon as you can smell the seeds toasting.

2. Combine all ingredient except blue cheese in a mix bowl and toss gently.

3. Spoon dressed salad onto serving plates. Add crumbled blue cheese on top.

Ocimum basilicum (Basil)

In North America, we are more likely to think of basil as an 'herb' or 'spice' than a vegetable. The closest we usually come to consuming basil as a vegetable is in pesto. But as anyone who has inter-planted basil with tomatoes can attest, supply usually outstrips demand.

You can only eat so much pesto.

One solution is to approach basil as vegetable. In India and Southeast Asia, where Ocimum basilicum is thought to originate, this is exactly what people do. The recipe below is based on a Taiwanese dish that was my first introduction to basil as a vegetable: Blackened Chicken with Basil. (Either tofu or chicken can be used in the recipe below). It goes equally well in other stir fries and salads.

Oversupply of basil isn't really an issue at this time of year, though. Fortunately, O. basilicum lends itself well to hydroponic cultivation. Several growers in the northeast produce hydroponic basil year-round (including Olivia's Greens, who grew the basil we ate). To my taste, the hydroponic basil doesn't have as much flavor as garden grown varieties. But it works well enough.

Taiwanese Basil and Blackened Tofu

cooking oil

2 tbs sugar

4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 cups of cubed tofu (or pre-cooked chicken)

1 tbs dark vinegar (balsamic or Zhenjiang)

1 tbs soy sauce

3 to 4 cups fresh basil leaves

1. Line the bottom of a cooking pan with oil and heat on high. The basic idea with Chinese cooking is to pre-cut the food and add a lot of heat to the food quickly. If you have an electric stove, the best way to approximate a gas flame on a wok is to use high heat on a flat pan that fits the size of your coil.

2. When the the oil is hot, add sugar. It should start to caramelized quickly (less than 1 minute).

3. Once the sugar starts to caramelize, added garlic and cubed tofu (or chicken). Stir with a spatula to cook the exterior of the tofu with blackening sugar.

4. Add vinegar and soy sauce. Continue stirring until most of the liquid cooks off. (1 – 2 minutes)

5. Add basil leave and turn off heat. Continue stirring in pan until basil leaves cook down (1 - 2 minutes).

Serve hot with white rice.

Solanum tuberosum (Potato)

Maine in winter can only mean one thing: potatoes.

Okay, there's a bit more variety than that, but potatoes are a good place to start. Maine is a potato state. Aroostook County in northern Maine is responsible for a sizable portion of US potato production. And most of that is destined for export.

There are a lot of potato eaters out there. The UN Food and Agriculture Organizations lists potatoes as the most important vegetable crop in the world. After rice, wheat and corn, it's the fourth largest food crop over all. Collectively humanity grows 330 million metrics tons of potatoes each year. That's almost 1,500 billions servings or about ½ serving a day for every man woman and child on the planet.

We eat a lot of potatoes.

S. tuberosum started as a humble tuber in the moutains of South America around 5,000 years ago. The story of its success as a food crop is an excellent example a malleable genome combined with a lengthy history of cultivation. Today there are between 4,000 and 5,000 varieties of potatoes cultivated everywhere from the tropics to northern Europe.

I threw five or six of them in the oven for an easy dinner that I like to call 'Bake Po-Super-Taters.' Basically just baked potatoes. But the kids like it, because I put all the fixing out on a big plate and they can 'decorate' their own potato. I like mine with butter, sour cream, bacon, cheddar cheese, chives, and sauerkraut. Yum.

Citrus limetta (Sweet lemon)

Citrus limetta, known inexplicably as the 'sweet lemon,' has all of the astringency of a regular lemon without any of the acidity or sweetness. I choked it down.

For the purposes of meeting my goal it seemed worth the effort. As unpleasant as it was to eat an entire serving of C. limetta's fruit, it was undoubtedly better than eating a whole sour lemon.

Along with other members of the Rutaceae family, C. limetta originated in Eurasia. One confounding attribute of citrus fruits for my purposes is that various sources list differing species classifications for commercially important members of the Rutaceae family. Many common citrus fruits are hybrids. And sources often disagree about the parent plants or even whether individual species should be considered a hybrid or a species in its own right.

C. limetta – along with (C. maxima, pomelo) is one of the few citrus fruits widely accorded a species designation. (Some sources do list it as a hybrid, though). Sweet lemons were originally introduced from the Mediterranean basin. They made their way to the Americas – along other citrus fruits, as part of the Colombian exchange.

It made its way into my hands, though, by mistake. I was looking for a regular lemon to put in a marinade and wound up with a sweet lemon instead. Unfortunately, C. limonetta doesn't have enough acidity to be worth putting in a marinade.

Once I realized my mistake, I asked a Costa Rican acquaintance what people use sweet lemon for. His response: “Mostly just for eating. But they're not very good.”

Passiflora ligularis (Granadilla)

Passiflora ligularis was another of my sister's finds. Known in English as 'sweet granadilla' or 'grenadia,' the fruit of P. ligularis can be yellowish to orangey-green. It's about the size of lemon, but more round. The first thing that struck me about it is how light it was. The granadilla's leathery skin ,which is white and pulpy on the interior, is mostly air.

Biologically, P. ligularis is a member of the Passifloraceae family, which contains 27 genera of tropical plants, Most plants in the family seem to be more valued for their flowers than their fruits. P. ligularis's range extends from northern Argentina to Mexico. Like other tropical fruits from Latin America, P. Ligualris has become established in part of Africa well as Australia.

When my sister presented it to me, I frankly had no idea what to make of it. The only thing that came to mind was the name 'granadilla,' which suggests a resemblance to pomegranates – called 'granadas' in Spanish.

When I cracked it open, I discovered that like a pomegranate, granadillas hold a large number of seeds suspended in a transparent pulp. The pulp is the edible part of the plant. Unlike pomegranates, an open granadilla smells like a eucalyptus tree after a heavy rain.

The fruit tastes more like sweet orange juice, but the faintest hint of eucalyptus hovers in the background. It is a flavor my sister described as 'not entirely unpleasant.' I'd rate it a little higher than that. But the swishing and spitting needed to separate the pulp from the seeds seems barely worth the effort.

Syzygium malaccense (Malay Apple)

Syzygium malaccense is the other side of the tropic fruit migration story. Its English name, Malay apple, betrays the fruits origins in the forests of Southeast Asia. Its Spanish name – manzana de agua or “water apple” – says a little more about its qualities as a fruit.

S. malaccense is a member of the extensive Myrataceae family which also includes myrtle, clove, guava, feijoa, allspice and eucalyptus – along with some 5600 other species. It is a strictly tropical plant that does not tolerate temperature below 40F.

Malay apples came to Central America on the flip side of the Colombian exchange that brought papayas, chocolate and other Central American fruits to Asia. In Costa Rica, as elsewhere in the Caribbean Basin, coffee growers inter-plant S. malaccense with coffee as a way to divert birds from their coffee crop.

It is also a locally important food crop. Malay apples can be eaten raw with their skin on. They are relatively high in pectin and can also be made into jam. Despite their name, Malay apples are more closely akin to a Bartlett pear in shape. Inside the reddish skin, the fruit is white and similar in texture to a firm cantaloupe. In keeping with its Spanish name, manzana de agua, Malay apples are slightly sour and very juicy. Oddly, though, it left my mouth feeling somewhat dry. My sister described the feeling as 'hairy.'

There's not really enough complexity in the flavor for me to consider seeking it out at premium, American grocery store prices. But I'd be eager to try a Malay apple jam, maybe with a bit of ginger even a little cranberry to add some tanginess and a little depth.

Carica papaya (Papaya)

I'm going to put this out there right up front: papaya is not my favorite fruit. I'm aware that this may strike some as heresy (notably, my wife). But there is something in the flavor of ripe papaya that always reminds me of of baby poop. And not in a good way.

That said, I am willing to keep coming back to papaya, if only to find out what the buzz is all about.

Like the soursop, sapote, and caimito, papaya is native to the Caribbean and Central America. Unlike those other fruits, the papaya has extended its reach around the tropics and, as an export commodity, into more temperate regions like North America and Europe.

Archaeological evidence suggests that papayas were first cultivated in Central America several centuries before the classical Meso-American societies emerged (around 2,000 years ago). The fruit grows on a single stemmed tree that can be up to 50 feet tall. Papaya trees grow rapidly and begin bearing fruit with 3 years. This rapid growth in part explains their popularity as a food stuff.

In the Americas,we tend to eat papayas as a fresh fruit. In China and Southeast Asia, though, papayas are often harvested while still green and served more like a vegetable – in curries and spicy papaya salads. One of my first encounters with payapa (outside of canned fruit salad), was a spicy payapa cole slaw in Laos that I still remember fondly.

However it is served, papaya – along with pineapples and bananas – are one of a handful of tropical fruits that have become a globally important crop. In fact, C. papaya was the first fruit tree to have its entire genome transcribed. This was done partially in response to an outbreak of papaya ringspot virus that threatened Hawaiian papaya production in the 1990s. Monsanto subsequently developed two GMO cultivars of papaya that are resistant to ringspot virus: SunUp and Rainbow.

Other non-GMO cutlivars with similar resistance have also been developed, which speaks to another reason behind papaya's success as a food crop: a relatively malleable genome that enables farmers to select cultivars for marketable characteristics (speed of growth, flavor, texture, durability). These are all important variable to control for if a fruit is to survive the long, damaging journey from tropical fruit tree to North American supermarket.

I can't say that I have any greater appreciation of riper papayas after having eaten them closer to their source. I could settle into a nice spicy papaya salad, though...

Chysophyllum cainito (Caimito)

Chysophyllum cainito also called caimito, start apple, milk fruit and aguay comes in three varieties: purple, greenish-brown and yellow. Like the sapote and the gaunabana, the caimito is a native Caribbean fruit that hasn't fallen far from the tree: caimitos are grown through the tropics, but rarely exported to temperate zones.

C. cainito is a member of the Sapotaceae family which also includes P. sapota (sapote), and Vitellaria paradoxa (from which Shea butter is derived) along with around 800 other species of tropical, evergreen trees. It is noted for its anti-oxidant properties. Its bark and leaves have medicinal properties as a stimulant and for treating diabetes and rheumatism. Derek Walcott, the Saint Lucian poet who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1992, even titled his 1979 collection poems for the fruit: The Star Apple Kingdom.

All this as a round-about way of saying that I wished I liked caimito more.

I may have been biased by white ooze near the stem hole. Caimito skin, which is inedible, is rich in latex that bleeds from incisions on the fruit, like milkweed or a broken dandelion stem. It is also possible that I selected an over-ripe or under-ripe fruit. And while the caimito has a pleasant, sweet flavor, I found it lacking in depth. Moreover, it also left my mouth feeling as though I'd eaten a spoon full of paste. (Too much latex?)

With apologies to Derek Walcott, this is one fruit that I probably won't be searching out in the future.

Pouteria sapota (Sapote)

Pouteria sapota is another species of tropical fruit that was entirely new to me. Sapote (pronounced: sa-poh-tay) is one of several closely related species of tropical fruits native to Central and South America. Sapotes are commonly the size of a large grapefruit, though more oblong in shape. They have fuzzy, brown skin that dimples and separates from the flesh as the fruit ripens.

I purchased my sapote from a road side vendor. I asked the vendor what it tastes like, and she got a very confused look on her face. Eventually, she told me it was sweet and had a large pit. In fairness, it is very difficult to describe the flavor of any fruit and sapote has flavor that it particularly difficult to describe. I'd be hard pressed to come up with a more succinct description.

When we got home, I cut the fruit longitudinally and twisted the two halves to reveal a tear-shaped seed nestled in the fruit. The interior was a soft, orangey-reddish fruit – approximately the same color and texture of a cooked sweet potato.

I tried to remove the seed as if it were an avocado pit by tapping it with my knife, but the blade bounced off with hollow knocking sound. After pulling the seed out with my fingers, I saw that one side of the teak-colored woody seed was cleft, with a mottled, tan surface. It is a strikingly attractive seed.

A wide range of properties have been attributed to the unusually shaped sapote seed. They are used in cosmetics, as an aphrodisiac, and variously either an additive or adulterant of chocolate. Some source even ascribe it hallucinogenic powers. I prefer its decorative value. I've drill a small hole in it near the top and plan to hang it from my Christmas tree next year.

As for the fruit itself, it has a rich, complex flavor like nutmeg with occasional hints of pepper and citrus. My first impression was something like a cross between a papaya and an avocado. If that doesn't sound enticing, I'll admit to initial uncertainty about the charm of its flavor. Sapotes lack the sweet tanginess often associated with tropical fruits. I can see why the sapote has not become a cross over hit in North American supermarkets.

That said, there was something in its the creamy, spiced flavor that brought me back for more. If flan were a fruit, it would be a sapote. I happily finished the second half of the sapote for breakfast the next morning. And felt like I was getting away with something.

I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for this charismatic fruit in the future...