The eggplant’s journey
The eggplant started life in India. Its name, however, may be derived from the Arab albadingen that may have led to the Indian brinjal. Like most questions of culinary provenance, the eggplant’s is...
View ArticleJefferson’s revolutionary cuisine
We know Thomas Jefferson as one of the Founding Fathers, but he was also a great champion of newcomers to this country – newcomers such as eggplant and sesame. In his garden at Monticello, which still...
View ArticleCider brings farmers back to the future
Well into fall, Adam Fincke steers his tractor between the rows of vintage apples on the tiny New York State orchard he farms, every now and then taking a glug from his cup holder. Not a Coke. Not a...
View ArticleAmerican lamb moving from pasture to plate
Like most Americans, Marjorie Meeks-Bradley did not grow up eating lamb. Although her mother was an early proponent of the Slow Food movement and cooked from Alice Waters’ cookbooks, Meeks-Bradley, a...
View ArticleA good crop of farmers markets blooms this season
“It was never my intention to start a farmers market,” says Janet Terry walking around the grounds at Montgomery General Hospital as tents are raised and musicians tune their instruments. However,...
View ArticleSlideshow: New York City farmers markets
New York City may be a concrete jungle, but it’s surrounded by farmland upstate and in New Jersey. Greenmarket was founded in 1976 to promote regional agriculture, provide direct contact between...
View ArticleSuccotash offers summer on a plate
No vegetable speaks to its seasonality better than summer corn. In my house, you’d think it was a contest to see who can eat the most before it goes out of season. In the global world, you can get corn...
View ArticleFinding food in the museum garden
If you want the real dirt on foraging for food, farm-to-market eating and how to compost, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has a program for you. If you live near or are visiting...
View ArticleSlideshow: Fresh Farm Markets, Dupont Circle
Washington, D.C., is not all politics. There is also fresh, local produce. Fresh Farm Markets operate 11 producer-only farmers markets in the Chesapeake Bay region. The Market at Dupont Circle was the...
View ArticlePostcard from Maine: blueberries
Kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk. To anyone who’s ever been a child, those are the sounds of Sal and her mother gathering blueberries in a bucket to can for the winter. Since I grew up in the Midwest, this...
View ArticleSlide Show: Long Island’s laid-back North Fork
If you’re looking for a destination that promises glamor and celebrity sightings, head to the Hamptons on Long Island (N.Y.)’s East End. If you prefer a slower-paced place dotted with farms and...
View ArticleFor some cranberry growers, a not-so-rosy Thanksgiving
As cranberries arrive at the holiday table, glowing like garnets, give thanks to the hands that sauced them – and those that cultivated them, too. Growers could use a hand themselves: An overabundance...
View ArticleCranberry, a native fruit, makes a splash
Cranberries are among the three fruits exclusively indigenous to America, along with blueberries and some grape varieties. Native people used cranberries for food, medicine and coloring. “Long before...
View ArticleMr. Pig (Cochon 555) comes to Washington
The country’s biggest pig fest is making the rounds again, leaving satisfied customers (stuffed pigs?) in its wake. Cochon 555 stopped at Union Market in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of revelers...
View ArticleSoulard Farmers Market is a St. Louis rite of spring
While I was growing up in St. Louis in the 1960s, my mother established a weekly market routine. Every Saturday morning, we headed to Soulard Farmers Market to buy the weekʼs fruit and vegetable supply...
View ArticleGrandfather’s Italian pepper seeds take root in America
When my grandfather immigrated to the United States in 1912, he carried only a few lira, but his pockets were stuffed with seeds for the vegetables that generations of his family had cultivated on...
View ArticleMulberries can be a blessing as well as a curse
I have long thought of mulberries as the cockroaches of the berry world — prolific, ubiquitous and universally despised. As a fruit, they lack the intense, complex flavor of blackberries or the soft...
View ArticleRatatouille translates as summer in any language
In the 1960s, when French cuisine started to hit the American market, we expanded our palates to accept many new foods. First there were quiche, brie and baguette. No problem. Then onion soup, coq au...
View ArticleAmerica’s land-water-food history at Smithsonian’s Food in the Garden series
Two centuries of connections between land, water and food in the U.S. will be explored on Thursday nights in September at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and Smithsonian Gardens....
View ArticlePawpaws: Starting to remember America’s forgotten fruit
The other night, under cover of dark, I finally got my pawpaw delivery. A merchant at my local farmers market in Washington, D.C. brought me a box of pawpaws he got in Pennsylvania. “The problem with...
View Article
