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.

Winter Melon One Pot Wonder

I'll admit it - even after years of shopping for produce in Chinatown, I still encounter mysterious vegetables that intimidate me. Winter melon is a good example. 

I guessed from its looks that winter melon was a kind of summer squash, but I was at a loss thereafter. Good thing my friend Thom, a Hong Kong native, is there to break it down for me!

She said, "Winter melon is like a cross-bred hairy cucumber and zucchini. The seeds inside are edible, so you don't have to pick them out. Winter melon is heartier than a cucumber, and it's popular in many Chinese stews and soups."

Thom likes to feature winter melon in this recipe. As she notes, it can be a side dish, or with the simple addition of mung bean vermicelli (aka cellophane noodles), a main course. Best of all, "It's a one pot wonder!"

Ingredients:

• 1 winter melon
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed, or 2-3 slices of ginger
• 1/2 cup broth (Note: since this is a vegetarian blog, I will suggest vegetable broth)
• Dash of soy sauce
• Optional: mung bean vermicelli, softened for 1 minute in boiling water then immediately drained

Directions:

1) Cut off both ends of the winter melon and peel off the skin to get rid of the fuzz.

2) Cut the winter melon in sections, then cut it into wedges. Keep the size of the wedges consistent so that the winter melon will cook evenly.

 

3) Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large pot. Add the garlic and let it infuse the oil, making sure that the garlic does not burn. If you do not like garlic, you may use a few slices of ginger as a substitute.

4) Add the wedges of winter melon and a pinch of salt, stirring to ensure that all of the winter  melon is coated with the seasoned oil.

5) Add 1/2 cup broth and let simmer for about 5-7 minutes. Note: If you plan to add vermicelli to your dish, add extra broth at this point. The noodles, which you will add after the winter melon is cooked, will soak up any excess liquid in the pot. Cook until the winter melon turns translucent. 

6) Add soy sauce, perhaps adding a bit more to taste. If you're cooking winter melon as a side dish, you're done! 

7) If you're making the winter melon with noodles, add the drained vermicelli to the winter melon, turn off the fire and keep the lid on for 2 minutes. Try to keep the noodles on one side of the pot.

Enjoy! A great start for winter and the new year!

What the heck is that? Water Chestnuts

As an inveterate Chinatown produce shopper, I frequently see vegetables for sale that are totally mysterious to me. For years I noticed displays of mud-encrusted brown bulbs, but had no idea what they were. Since I had plenty of other items available to amuse me, I paid the bulbs little attention and busied myself with many other produce delights.

But when I was recently shopping at a favorite Chinatown stand (making a typical purchase of broccoli, mushrooms and kabocha), I overheard another customer asking for a pound of water chestnuts.  The vendor obliged by scooping up some of the papery bulbs. This long-term mystery was solved!

Water chestnuts? Sure, intellectually I understood that water chestnuts were not born boiled and canned, but I never realized they were were so readily available fresh.

I hadn't actually given them much thought at all. I had only had water chestnuts in Chinese dishes such as stir-fries, in which they distinguished themselves as the crunchy-but-otherwise-bland element. I assumed they also showed up in pot stickers and other finely chopped vegetable conglomerations, mainly because no vegetable escapes such associations.

But I was curious enough to buy a pound of water chestnuts myself and begin exploring this familiar yet strange new vegetable.

I learned that water chestnuts aren't actually bulbs; they're corms, similar to bulbs, but made up of solid tissue, whereas bulbs are made up of layers of quasi-leaves. Water chestnuts grow in marshes, and - as I had seen over the years - they're generally sold covered with a layer of dirt. They resemble tree chestnuts (actual nuts, not vegetables) somewhat, hence the name, but the two are entirely unrelated.

I gave my water chestnuts a good soak and scrubbing.

The next step: removal of the papery skin. Forget the vegetable peeler:  water chestnuts are small, round and tricky, so you'll need a sharp paring knife. Cut off both ends, then pare off the skin. 

 You'll be left with a lot of debris and small white nubs. 

What to do with these nubs?

One obvious idea was to use the fresh water chestnuts in the manner of canned: sliced in a stir-fry;  chopped finely for pot stickers; or wrapped with smoky tempeh in a vegetarian version of the only non-Chinese water chestnut recipe I know, bacon wrapped around water chestnuts, covered in a ketchup sauce and baked.

But all of them seemed a waste after the hassle of peeling them. Besides, I was curious about how fresh water chestnuts differed from their canned cousins, and sauces would obscure the distinctions.

I decided to try the water chestnuts as is. First bite: crunchy! Sweet, with a mild apple + coconut taste, then a hint of something more vegetal, maybe broccoli stem. After seeing my prep work, my friend Charlotte was sufficiently game to try one. She said, "The taste is changing a little while I eat it. It tastes a little like an apple, but then it tastes different, maybe more like a vegetable by the time you swallow." I thought so too.

It wasn't love at first bite, but I kept eating these little nubs, partly to figure out their elusive taste, partly to figure out if I liked them, and partly because they made a satisfying crunch. I had thought, "Good for crudites," and "Try it with a dip," but before I knew it, there weren't any water chestnuts left to try.

Perhaps another trip to Chinatown is in order...

Autumn at the Union Square Market

Cold weather is a mixed bag for the produce enthusiast. There are definite limits to my locavore enthusiasm when the temperature drops. Still, it's hard for me to remain unmoved by the glorious autumn displays at the Union Square Farmers' Market.

Here are some highlights:

Washington DC Markets

The Lincoln Memorial.

The Air and Space Museum.

The Dupont Circle Farmers' Market.

Yes, it's a Produce Savant trip to Washington DC!

I hadn't been to DC for many years. On my last visit, I was so produce-starved I ended up buying a banana from an ice cream parlor. But things have changed since then.

I was delighted to find that farmers' markets have become popular and readily accessible since my last visit. When I asked the staff at our hotel about farmers' markets, I received some helpful and straightforward ideas, mercifully free of any good-thing-I'm-paid-to-deal-with-members-of-fringe-communities response.

But we found our first market serendipitously, while walking downtown. This market was held at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

The USDA market offered a two-fer: vendors plus the opportunity to see produce growing in the surrounding gardens. The selection of farm stands was small, but offset by the friendly vibe and the extreme convenience of finding the market without going out of our way. 

The market's modest size showcased the courtly manners of the vendors. These manners, coupled with the prominence of certain vegetables like lima beans and okra - while our markets in New York do have them, they occupy less actual and mental real estate - gave the market a semi-Southern vibe, not inappropriate for this semi-Southern city.   

 


Would it be snarky to note that the USDA farm stand that attracted the longest lines featured King Corn? Yes, skip over the fairy eggplant, tomatoes and okra to get to the market's real attraction, kettle corn.

Of course, like all travelers, we had to keep it moving.

Our next destination was the Eastern Market, a public market in the Capitol Hill neighborhood that first opened in 1873 - about 20 years earlier than Philadelphia's wonderful Reading Terminal Market.  Its 19th century building was gutted in a fire in 2007 but renovated and re-opened in 2009. My carnivorous friends were very impressed by the market's butcher stand. For us herbivores, the market was a little small. We were ready for some destination produce markets.

Next stop: the market at 14th and U Streets. 

I enjoy exploring urban neighborhoods like U Street, which added to the fun. This market had a nice selection of farm stands.

Although the prices seemed a bit high by New York standards - more on this later - the vendors did have a more formal system of discounting small and bruised produce than is common in New York.

I have to admit my favorite vendor was not a farm stand but rather No 1 Sons, produce picklers. As a connoisseur not only of farmers' markets but also their signs, I was doubly wowed.

Our final market: the huge Dupont Circle farmers market. 







This one is operated by FreshFarm, which also runs conveniently located markets in neighborhoods such as Foggy Bottom, Union Market, downtown Silver Spring (Maryland) and "by the White House." 







FreshFarm restricts participation to "farmers/producers who sell what they grow, raise or produce on their own farm or facility." All farmers must hail from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed region, which by FreshFarm's reckoning includes a 200 mile radius of Washington DC and the states of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia.


I enjoyed the extensive samples and some C-SPAN policy wonk celebrity sighting. I can't wait for the Us Magazine spread: "Celebrities are just like us - they shop at farmers' markets!" I'm just not sure that pundits count as celebrities.

I couldn't help but notice that the prices at the market - Dupont Circle especially - were steep, noticeably steeper than NYC's Union Square Greenmarket. I mentioned this to a FreshFarm staffer, and she responded matter-of-factly, "Oh, DC is much more expensive than New York in general." 

Huh!  This was news to me (and various chart-makers) - NYC's real estate costs are especially ridiculous - but we're happy to step aside. 

Lest you think the Produce Savant is a philistine with limited interests, I should add that I did visit many of Washington's great museums. Here are some highlights from the National Gallery of Art! 

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