What the heck is that? Muscadine

Suddenly they are everywhere.  Well, maybe not everywhere, but at a lot of places.  

Could muscadines, aka swamp grapes, be the Next Big Produce Thing?

Here are some muscadines at a produce stand in the South Bronx. 

Surrounded by fruit stand mainstays like bananas, strawberries and oranges, and Latino neighborhood mainstays like papayas, plantains and two kinds of avocados (one of which, the large tasteless green kind, labeled "Domin" for Dominican, perhaps a slander) were the muscadines: small purplish fruit, a bit smaller and rounder than Damson or Italian Prune plums in the primo real estate of the center square. 

I have also been seeing muscadines all over Chinatown. Here they are at one stand in Chinatown, next to longans, grapes and starfruit.

 And here they are at Sarah's Fruit Stand in Union Square.

I have a poor track record of produce prognostication - that is, guessing which obscure produce items will cross over. I wouldn't have plucked muscadines off the chorus line.

Muscadines are grapes that are native to the United States, specifically its hot, swampy South, where most grape varieties would plead uncle. They are a fruit with many nicknames, including "America's first grape." Sir Walter Raleigh described muscadines in glowing terms way back in 1584 when he encountered them growing along the Outer Banks in 1584. Southerners have been making jellies, sauces and - most importantly - wine, ever since.

Muscadines grow in clusters, but the clusters are much looser than the tight bunches of other grapes. 

 

They are harvested one by one, not in bunches. And they are big by grape standards, so it's easy to mistake them for small plums, as you would for the fruit in the opening photo.

Photo credit: grapeseedextract.com

Muscadines, like most deeply colored fruit, have impressive antioxidant levels, and are especially high in resveratrol and ellagic acid. M.D. Journals (special Carolinas edition, natch) says, "A single 1 cup serving of muscadine grapes would more than double the average person's antioxidant intake." This could explain some of the fruit's newfound popularity. In the South, there is also a certain folk celebration of the fruit in the South, especially for old-time muscadine hull pies and wine.

On the "con" side, however, are two inescapable attributes: seeds and thick skins. In this country, seeds are generally considered a nuisance by most fruit consumers (and the corporations that predict and shape consumers' behavior). When was the last time you saw watermelon with seeds, for example?

Thick skin is a different matter: even though I have no quarrel with baked potato and kabocha peels, I am annoyed by the muscadines' thick skins. (I'm pretty tolerant of seeds). But muscadine lovers work around the problem.

Ozzy of Sarah's fruit stand is one enthusiast. "I love them!" he said. His technique is to bite into the muscadine and suck out the pulp, which he then discards. He doesn't mind the seeds, but as he says, "I'm Turkish, so I don't think fruit shouldn't have seeds."

He throws out the skins, but as muscadines grow in popularity, I imagine a secondary market for the discarded skins. Added to smoothies for the nutritional power? Harnessed for agricultural disease resistance? Organic clothing dye? Touted addition to makeup and shampoos?

Or maybe it's just time to bake up some extra muscadine hull pie.

The Slime Factor

Is okra the new "it" vegetable?

For the first time, okra is making frequent appearances on New York's produce carts - following the star-making trail of fuyu persimmon, lychees and other mainstream crossover successes.

I know I have limited ability to divinate The Next Big Produce Thing, okra's popularity is surprising for an excellent reason: okra doesn't get a lot of love.

Some responses I've heard over the years: "Eww!" "Are you really gonna eat that?" and "Okra? Aren't they like slugs for vegetarians?"

My friend Maryann is an okra enthusiast, though she mainly enjoys okra in its New Orleans omnivore incarnations - gumbo (literally okra in Bantu), and jambalaya. Of course, it helps that she doesn't mind what others find objectionable about okra: the slime factor. "I like it all," she says.

I'm not as unambivalently pro-okra. I like okra pickles (hmm...I sense a potential blog entry!), which are crispy and non-slimy, but I'm put off by the slug-like texture that I associate with overcooked okra.

To learn more about okra's potential, I turned to Indian cuisine. I love Indian vegetarian food - could half a billion people be wrong? - but I admit that two decades of enjoying Indian food hasn't prompted me to order bhindi masala. (Okra vs. potatoes, lentils and flatbread? Nice try. Hard to find anyone to go halvsies, either.) But simply knowing that okras had a fan base for dishes beyond gumbo and deep-fried hush puppies (deep-fried anything has a fan base, so the that can't count for much) helped make the case to try some okra for myself.

But what to do about the slime factor?

There were several schools of thought: Don't cut the stem. No, don't cut the okra anywhere. An intact okra is a slime-free okra.

No, the enemy is water. Never add water to okra. Dry the okra diligently - and dry it again when you think you're done - after washing it. 

High heat! High heat will keep your okra nice and slimeless. High heat and quick cooking.

No, choose youth! Small, tender okra would naturally have fewer seeds and less developed mucilage - i.e., less slime.

I decided to cherry-pick some ideas from the varying philosophies. After perusing some recipes, I decided to cook okra with some onion and Indian spices.

Most bhindi masala recipes call for the okra to be split lengthwise. That seemed to be an invitation to slimeville. I liked the idea of quick cooking at a high heat. I also liked the idea of small, tender okra, ideally warmed by the August sun in my own ripening garden, but as a young friend likes to say, you get what you get and you don't get upset. 

My stance on slicing was part devil-may-care (I'd slice most of them), part scientific researcher (I'd keep a few okra whole and see if this control group was substantively different than the cut sample).

Finally, I would wash those babies and pat them Sahara Desert dry.What else are paper towels for?


Indian Spiced Okra

1 lb. okra
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
1 teaspoon ground cumin 
1 teaspoon cumin seeds (what can I say? I love cumin!)
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon asafetida, optional 
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or less, to taste) or other hot pepper
Oil spray


Directions: 

Wash and dry the okra. Slice in half or keep whole as you wish. Or do both, for comparison.

Spray a large saute pan or cast iron skillet with oil spray or a thin film of olive oil. Saute the onion over a medium flame, adding the garlic after a few minutes, until golden (about 5 minutes). 

Add the ginger-garlic paste and then the spices, stirring vigorously to coat the onion mixture, and saute for a minute. 

Add the okra, continuing to stir. Add another bit of oil or oil spray to prevent scorching. Cover the pan, lower the heat and cook for an additional 3 - 4 minutes.

Variation: I added 2 chopped tomatoes with the okra, since bhindi masala does include tomatoes. 

This time the okra did come out a bit slimy. Was it the tomatoes? Did I simply overcook the dish? My mode of scientific inquiry has its limits: I plan to return to the tomato-free version rather than test all the permutations of the dish. Besides, I'll need those okras for my pickling experiments.

Good thing the produce carts seem so well stocked.