Saudações de Portugal (Greetings from Portugal)

When my jetsetting friend Bethanne told me she was planning a trip to Portugal, I naturally demanded some photos of the markets.

"What are you looking for?" she asked. "What if they don't have anything that interesting, just the familiar things we have here?"

"I still want to know what they have and how they sell it," I replied. "Maybe they have huge displays of olives, or something that expresses the essence of the Portuguese way of life.

"I love produce markets!" I added enthusiastically, maybe too enthusiastically. I hoped I wasn't spitting as I talked, though even if I had been, it was a phone call and she would have been unscathed.

Whatever her misgivings, Bethanne is a good friend and she took some photos for me. Actually she took more than photos -- she took a hit for me (and the noble cause of produce nosiness), since the supermarket, a Pingo Doce supermarket in Campo Grande, told her to stop photographing.

This photos below show a nice assortment of melons, plums, regular and donut peaches, grapes, etc. There are also some interesting curiosities above the fruit, like the inflatable banana in the above the fresh fruit in the upper part of the photographs.

I wanted to learn more about Pingo Doce, which looks like a large Portuguese supermarket chain. I enjoyed checking out the stores' weekly circular - something your can't do with a roadside fruit stand or even a central market, however wonderful they are in other ways. From what I could see, fruits and vegetables seem to play a supporting role, as they would in a US circular; I was most struck by the centrality of fish (another supporting player in the circulars I'm most familiar with), and wine, which in NYC is mostly sold in wine stores. In NYC, probably the most famous Portuguese food is very tasty Portuguese bread, originating in Newark's Ironbound neighborhood and delivered all over the metropolitan area. Bread gets a lot of love in the motherland too, judging by the respectful amount of real estate devoted to in the circular.

I also enjoyed reading about the fruta e legumes in Portuguese, which is amusingly similar-but-different than Spanish. Carrots, "zanahoria" in Spanish, are "cenoura" in Portuguese. Onions, "cebolla" in Spanish, are "cebola" in Portuguese.  Oranges, "naranja" in Spanish, are "laranja" in Portuguese. And so on. I notice too that the word "importada" (imported) shows up in a few listings, suggesting that most of the stuff isn't imported, and that the names of maçãs (apples) are in English - Gala, Royal Gala, Starking and Golden. The "translate this page" button helped me learn Pingo Doce's philosophy regarding its produce: 

We are committed to flavor and sweetness. Meaning that define levels of minimum sugar content for each variety of fruit we put on sale.Here you will not find fruit that is not sweet. Do not forget: flavor and sweetness.

Bethanne basically agreed with this sentiment. She wrote, "I found the fruit to be sweeter than in the US. Some of the homegrown stuff gets very big - melons, lettuce and oranges, larger-sized that what you see sold in the US."

Thanks, Bethanne, for the photos and reporting. And thanks Pingo Doce for a new, tattoo-worthy creed for all fruits, fruit vendors and fruit customers:

Do not forget: flavor and sweetness.

Cauliflower - for Lovers and Haters Alike

Cauliflower has many fans. Also many enemies.

"This is dinner? Is this some kind of cruel, sick joke?" asked a friend who saw my cookbook opened to a cauliflower curry. I had actually planned to substitute some less objectionable vegetables for the cauliflower in deference to his preferences. Hater!

My friend Thom is in the Cauliflower Lover camp. She writes,

Cauliflower is my favorite vegetable!  I like it steamed, roasted, saluted or mashed (but not so much raw.) It is high in potassium and fiber.  A whole entire head of cauliflower is only 150 calories and it will fill you up! 

When you buy the cauliflower, make sure there are no brown spots or black dots on them.  You want the florets to be tightly closed. It's they are loose, the cauliflower has likely been sitting on the shelves for a long time. 

When you cook cauliflower, break it into florets or cut it into smaller pieces, making  sure they are uniform size so they will cook evenly.  Don't throw the stems away! They add texture to the dish. Cut the stem into even smaller pieces, since the stem pieces take longer to cook.

For a simple and tasty recipe, I recommend roasting cauliflower in a pan on a single layer. Crowding the pan will make it harder for the cauliflower to caramelize.  For every 1 head of cauliflower, I would add 2-3 garlic cloves to it. Just smash it and throw them in with the florets.  Drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper for taste and mix well. Put the pan into a 375-400 degree oven for 30-35 minutes, and you are done! 

If you like to walk on the wild side, here are different variations:

a) Before roasting, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder to the fore and mix well. Very healthful!

b) After the cauliflower has been roasting for 20 - 25 minutes (about 10 minutes before it's done), remove the pan and sprinkle a thin layer of Parmesan cheese on the cauliflower. 

Yum! Look how caramelized and snackable these florets look.

For those whose only association with cauliflower is a boiled-to-the-point-of-waterloggged mess method, this recipe can be a revelation.

As a test, I recommended Thom's method to Lol to see if she would try it. Success! Lol said, "Amazingly tolerable! And I think it would even work with frozen cauliflower, since you're eliminating the whole waterlogged part."

One Hater converted, millions to go. Our work is just beginning.

Siempre Es Primavera - Guest Blog Post from Mexico City

As this never-ending winter grinds our spirits into filthy slush, it's cheering to think about spring - anyone's spring.

My friend Bethanne has been spending a lot of time in Mexico City, which has a famously mellow average temperature of around 60 degrees. It's always springtime there!  This is sounding mighty attractive right now.

Even better, Mexico City has massive markets that draw upon Mexico's unbelievable agricultural bounty, and a tradition of displaying produce - even at modest roadside stands or hanging out near the socks and toys - in aesthetically pleasing ways.

Playing peek-a-boo near the nopales (pads from the prickly pear cactus), avocados and chayotes, a crisp member of the squash family.

Radishes, herbs like cilantro and mint, and attractively bound young and mature onions occupy market space as proudly as movie tie-in plushies.

Even black trash bags on the ground can make a nice backdrop for flowers, squash, prickly chayotes and mushrooms.

Of course, if the humble roadside stand looks good, imagine what a real market stand will offer!  Citrus fruits, apples, bananas, green pomegranate, peaches, magenta dragon fruit and the scaly monster-with-a-sweet-heart guanabana.

This market photo showcases more dragon fruit, beautifully cut red pomegranate, limes, guanabana's relative, cherimoya, and sapodilla (recently seen in the Filipino markets as the more diminutive chico.  

If huge bunches of herbs (I think I'm seeing oregano, laurel culantro and epazote, among others) are sold next to bags of cement, you know they're pretty central to a country's cuisine.

Similarly, huge bins of dried chile peppers - anchos, chiles de arbol, moritas (chipotles), pasillas, etc. - prove the centrality of these flavor powerhouses in Mexican cuisine.

I'm feeling warmer already. Thanks, Bethanne!

Don't you wish you were at this Philippines fruit market right now?

My former next-door neighbor Tirso is a serious world traveler, a nurturer of plants you wouldn't imagine could thrive in a New York City apartment, and an all-around wonderful person. Originally from the Philippines, Tirso originally came to New York to work for the U.N. But his love for the Philippines still runs deep.

Years ago he sent me a postcard from the Philippines the featured a fruit market. I still remember the bountiful displays of exotic fruit! Tirso sent me new year's wishes from the Philippines, so I thought I'd ask him to send some pictures of some real-life markets to help me forget our blustery, freezing weather for a minute. With the help of his nieces Bea and Inna in Ilocos, in northern Phillipines, he obliged.  

Here are some highlights:


Mangoes:

 "These are the sweetest mangoes in the world!" Tirso writes.

Tirso was always nostalgic about Filipino mangoes. Over the years he shared many mango treats with me - dried mango, mango candy - so I know of his enthusiasm for the fruit. And of course, someone who has lived and traveled as much Tirso has doesn't use superlatives lightly. Trust this guy with your mango selection!

They really have you covered at this market: yellow mangoes, green mangoes, pre-peeled and cut (artistically, too) mangoes for the mango lover on the run.



Pineapples and melons! What's not to love here?

Chicos:

Tirso wrote, "These are tropical fruits called Chicos. They grow in Latin America and Florida, but they're bigger there."

I remembered a fruit that looked just liked these from Vietnam (minus the University of Luzon advertisement, of course). I asked Tirso, "Aren't these  sapote?" Tirso answered that they were indeed, only a smaller variety.

Sapote, or sapodilla, is a tropical fruit that is indigenous to the Americas, but came to the Philippines via Spanish conquest. I sometimes see sapote in the fruit markets in East Harlem and the Bronx that cater to customers from the Caribbean. Sapotes are sweet and relatively caloric, like bananas and other tropical fruits, but - less typically - they have an astringent quality because they are high in tannins.  (Tannins are believed to have anti-inflammatory, antiviral and antibacterial capacities.)  More strikingly, their juice is like latex! After a fruit or two the mucilage will do its trick and you'll have to pry your mouth open.

The final fruit featured looked appealing, but aroused some suspicion when I showed the picture to  my Filipina friend Bea, who also hails from the northern part of the Philippines. "Ha!" she said. "That's imported! We don't have oranges like that in the Philippines." 

I posed the question to Tirso, who listed the citrus fruits native to the Philippines: limes, sour orange; and dalanghita or daladan, sweet tangerine-oranges with green skin.  But not mandarin-oranges. Bea was right. These market oranges were indeed imported from China. 

This got me thinking. The Filipino markets should diversify! Forget nearby China, even if it is the world's biggest apple exporter.  As long as the fruit markets in the Philippines are open to importing produce, how about trading mangoes for some New York State apples? 

'Shroomin' in Tokyo (Guest blog post from Japan)

Location: New York City (Brooklyn and the Bronx, to be exact). Some heavy rains have resulted in a bumper crop of my favorite fungus.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo my friend Hiroko was also thinking about mushrooms - albeit more productively.

Here's her guest blog post: 

As an apartment dweller in Tokyo, words like "farming" and "harvesting" don't typically come very close to me. So when I found a pile of plastic wrapped logs labeled "Shiitake Log" at the fresh produce section of my local super market, I was really skeptical. They were sold 399 yen (around $4) a piece. Seriously? Hey, a pack of Shiitake Mushroom costs about $2.99! So why not giving it a try? Even if it fails, we have nothing to lose!

The idea of farming Shiitake was an instant hit with my 8 years old son. No pets are allowed in this building, but a pet Mushroom Log? YES! With enthusiasm, we opened the plastic wrapping, but we didn't find any instruction,  just a piece of hand-written memo that said, "Remove the wrap. Spray water. In a few days, Shiitake comes." Oh thank you very much!

My son did some research and said: "My fungus needs a high moisture level." He started to spritz water on the log, twice a day, as if it was an honorable job. And really, in two days.....voila! MUSHROOMS!

Whoa! Almost too much!

Tokyo is currently in its rainy season, which is called "Tsuyu" ("Plum Rain," the annual rainy season when plums are ripening), so along with my son's diligent spritzing, the Shiitake Log is getting plenty of moisture on our balcony. Did you know 90% of a Shiitake is water? 

The Shitakes are thriving, happily popping up. Harvesting has become my son's daily routine!

Harvesting mushrooms for dinner.

Miso Soup with Shiitake and Scallions, Bean Thread (Saifun) Salad with Shiitake, Eggs and Fish Cake, Chicken Drumsticks and Eggs, Pickles

Miso Soup with Shiitake and Scallions, Bean Thread (Saifun) Salad with Shiitake, Eggs and Fish Cake, Chicken Drumsticks and Eggs, Pickles.

Greetings from Agadir, Morocco!

Greetings from Agadir, Morocco!

Alas, the greetings are not my own but rather from a reader, Anita, who sent me some photos from sunny North Africa. (I'm in NYC, where a snowstorm has closed the Union Square Market, chased away even the hardiest of street vendors and even emptied the supermarket shelves of their dubious produce options.)

Anita writes,

I'm on the last bit of a tour of Morocco that includes Casablanca, Marrakesh and Essaouira. I thought you'd appreciate this picture of the central market in Agadir, a city on the Atlantic Coast. This market was actually featured on our tour!

Many people know Moroccan cuisine for its tajines, couscous and cinnamon - infused dishes. Despite some desertification, Morocco is also a big producer of produce - melons, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, olives, figs, dates, and, most prominently of all, citrus fruits. Just about the only Moroccan fruit I've ever seen for sale in the U.S. are Royal Moroc clementines.

Anita writes, 

I saw avocados; nice-looking strawberries and raspberries; gorgeous, huge persimmons; small bananas; squash and eggplant; big navel oranges. Clementines are ubiquitous.

Perhaps Morocco's best known agricultural product is argan oil, which has been used for culinary and cosmetic purposes within Morocco for millennia. More recently, it's become very popular all over the world as an anti-oxidant powerhouse hair and skin conditioner. Argan trees, native to Morocco, grow fruits that contain kernels (not unlike cashew apples) that are harvested for oil.  Argan oil's popularity has been good for the environment - the hardy trees are fighters against desertification - and for women's economic development in Morocco, since much of the argan oil industry is based upon women's cooperatives. 

Argan fruit extremely popular with another group, whom Anita photographed on the road between Essaouira and Casablanca chowing down in the trees: goats. 

It's nice to know that even these famously non-discerning eaters occasionally eat right!

Thanks, Anita, for sharing your trip with me. I feel warmer already.

Talking Turkey

My friend Lol recently paid a visit to Turkey, and very graciously took some pictures of fruit stands in Istanbul. (Note to readers: I'd love to get your pictures too - the farther afield from New York the better. That means you, audience member in Mauritius. And you, in Kuwait and Kazakhstan! And you too, Luc of the Jacaranda Primary and Secondary School in Malawi. Just email me your interesting photos - odd fruit, mystery veggies, only-natives-love-it produce, local markets - at theproducesavant@gmail.com. Thanks!)

The first photos howcases some very attractive melons (with more of a vine/leaf presence that melons generally do in the US); squash; beans; potatoes; and onions.

When I visited Turkey about 15 years ago, I went in March - a particularly cold March. I was a little startled that there was snow on the ground. I hadn't expected Istanbul to be colder than New York.

In those days Turkey did not import produce - that's probably no longer the case - so the produce selection was a bit limited. I recall that carrots were ever-present, along with grapes, specifically the most wonderful muscat grapes I've ever had.

Turkey has changed a lot since then, but I hope the muscat grapes are as good as ever.

Lol also snapped a picture of cherries, always of interest to me, sold alongside small green plums that were unfamiliar to her. As she wrote,  "There was a fruit in Istanbul I hadn't had before - a kind of green plum that isn't sweet. It's not exactly sour, but it wasn't sweet."

By some cosmic coincidence, while Lol was in Istanbul checking out the strange green plums, I was at Kalustyan's, New York's premier spice bazaar - I also checking out the strange green plums they had on display. 

Fortunately a sign explained it all:

Erik! Not just a man's name, it was a global phenomenon. I bought some plums, took them home and cut them up, and tried them with the requisite salt.

As I snacked, I googled "goje sabz" and found this heartfelt ode on the blog My Persian Kitchen:

Do you have any fond childhood memories that involve food? I do. Many.  I always get that fuzzy feeling inside any time I see or taste something that I loved in my childhood. Everyone looked forward to when [gojeh sabz] were in season because every loves Gojeh Sabz. If you are Persian and you don’t like them, then there is something wrong with you. Can I be any more judgemental???!! Seriously….

 Gojeh Sabz is actually sour plums which have not fully riped. They are sour and delicious! During this time of the year I buy them from our local Persian Grocery store. Much to my delight while I was at the Farmers Market in Torrance yesterday there was a vendor who was selling them. How awesome is that?I just stood in front of the tables and had a moment of happiness with me myself and I.The way we eat them is with a little pinch of salt.  The combination of sour and salty is just out of this world good! It will make you giggle!!! All you have to do is take a little bite, then sprinkle a little salt, take another bite, another sprinkle of salt and another bite….next thing you know you have gone through a whole bunch of them, because they are just like potato chips.

I certainly understand how powerful food memories are. And yes, even produce inspires longing in the homesick. But are erik/gojeh sabz/janareng as addictive as potato chips?

Nope.

They were okay, but not more than the sum of their parts. "Gee, this tastes like a salty, unripe plum," I thought. Since I had a little pile of salt remaining from Operation Appreciate Gojeh Sabz, I thought I'd experiment with another plum - a ripe one. Whaddaya know? I liked it better. 

And it was even better without the salt.