Animal, Vegetable, Miracle_ A Year of Food Life - Barbara Kingsolver [22]
I decided that even if I grew up to love asparagus, I would always tell my Mom I hated it. I didn’t want her to be right about my personal preferences. My stubborn plot fell by the wayside, however, several springs later when I bit into a tender asparagus shoot and realized how delicious it was. I decided a lifetime of lies and deception wouldn’t be worth it.
Little kids seem to choose arbitrarily which foods they absolutely won’t eat (for me it was asparagus; for my sister it’s peppers). Most of us eventually get eased or taunted out of thumb-sucking, but it’s easy to carry childish food decisions into adulthood. I feel lucky that I was pushed out of that box. Not beaten with a stick, but exposed continuously by grown-ups who were obviously enjoying something I was too immature to like. Now my family laughs about my days of asparagus hatred, especially since I’ve become such a veggie hog, they have to move the dish out of my reach so there might be a chance of having some leftovers. I think my body won out over my brain, recognizing vegetables as being crucial to good health. Asparagus is one of the best natural sources of folic acid, vitamins A, C, and K,
some B vitamins, potassium, phosphorus, and glutathione, which is a potent antioxidant and anticarcinogen. Nutritional benefits can motivate some to incorporate vegetables into their diets, but for most people taste is the key. I’m glad my parents did their eat-your-vegetables act in a household where fresh vegetables were the norm. If they had tried this with the flavorless, transported kind widely available in this country, I might still be the wincing asparagus drama queen.
When asparagus is rolling in from the garden every day, the simplest way to prepare it is a quick sauté over high heat. This technique caramelizes the sugars and brings out the very best of the asparagus flavor. Using butter in the skillet (alone or in combination with olive oil) provides just enough water to steam the spears as they’re also being sautéed. Gently shake them in the pan, cooking just until they turn bright green with slightly blackened undersides. Grilling asparagus in a grill basket produces similar tasty results. Steaming is fine too, for a minimalist treatment. Freshly harvested asparagus is so tender, we never bother with peeling it.
Naturally, in April we can’t live on asparagus alone. In late winter and spring the local food enthusiast will have to rely on some foods stored from last year—we use our stored root vegetables, winter squash, dried tomatoes, and some frozen packages of last year’s garden goods to round out the spring greens. Some herbs, like cilantro and oregano, may start coming in now along with baby greens, early broccoli, peas, and onions. A typical week’s meal plan might look like the following. Always bear in mind, with this and other meal plans, that leftovers and creative recycling are options. Every chicken dinner at our house, for example, ends with the carcass going into the stock pot (basically a big kettle of water) to boil for several hours. When the stock is thick and gold-colored and the meat falls off the bones, they’re both ready to freeze or just refrigerate for a couple of days for an easy chicken salad and/or soup.
LATE WINTER MEAL PLAN
Sunday~ Herbed roast chicken with potatoes, beets, and carrots
Monday~ Chef salad with boiled eggs or sausage, green onions, and dried tomatoes, with bread
Tuesday~ Chicken soup with carrots, kale, and rice (or fresh bread)
Wednesday~ Twice-baked potatoes stuffed with sautéed spring onions, broccoli, and cheese
Thursday~ Asparagus omelette or frittata and baby-greens salad
Friday~ Pizza with dried tomatoes, olives, feta, and sautéed onions
Saturday~ Lamb chops, mesclun salad, asparagus, and rhubarb-apple crisp
3 • SPRINGING FORWARD
April is the cruelest month, T. S. Eliot wrote, by which I think he meant (among other things) that springtime makes people crazy. We expect too much, the world burgeons with promises it can’t keep, all passion is really a