Author: Stephanie March

Outside Minnesota, the month of August has nary a holiday. Many people just let the hot, humid month hang there, lazily dipping its toes off the dock. But here, we know August shimmers like the last few grains of sand falling through the hourglass, telling us our time in the sun is waning. So we celebrate life and our own holidays with “the fest,” not the Great Minnesota Get-Together parking extravaganza, but the local fair, the carnival in the church parking lot. The one where your softball team and the mayor dress as clowns and chuck candy at kids.

For me, it was Corn Days in Long Lake, where our corner was prime squatting for the parade, my sister was a Corn Princess, and for two days you could eat all the corn you could handle for $1.50. The night before the fest, I would ride my bike to church and help shuck the corn, husks and silk flying through the warm evening air. The next day we’d sit in the grass with butter glossing our faces and kernels jammed in our braces as we watched the boys to see who got cuter over the summer. The taste of a hot, plump, buttery cob is inextricably tied to the feelings of those last heady days of summer—of contentment and divine satisfaction.

If you believe as I do that corn is a heavenly gift that brings farm boys to roadside stands with heaping pickups, we’re not the first. Some ancient tribes believe that the Creator gave the People one last gift before placing them on Mother Earth—four kinds of corn. Yellow from the South for the advent of spring and new life; red from the West for long lives with the sun; white from the North for strength; and blue from the East for wisdom and understanding. The People were instructed to be corn’s caretakers and to use corn for food, medicine, and prayer. Judging by the fact that corn now grows on every continent except Antarctica, the People have done their job.

Corn, or maize, as most of the planet knows it, is actually in the grass family, despite its omnipresence in veggie medleys. This grass is differentiated from its relatives by the large seed heads (cobs) and shorter growth rate, but it’s still considered a cereal crop. The origination of this crop is believed to be in the Americas, and archaeologists have found evidence that it predates humans in some regions.

A smite of controversy surrounds the global dissemination of maize, whether it be pre- or post-Columbian, and no one can actually track how it came to exist all over the planet. For a Midwesterner, it can be a bit odd to see long waving cornfields outside of Bangkok, but where else would they get the baby corn they love so much? It took the Europeans awhile to warm up to the cob. Knowing it mainly as feed for the swine, the Parisian guests of Alice B. Toklas called her a savage for trying to feed it to them.

Despite the kernel’s long history, its mysteries are still being unlocked. Did you ever notice that there are always an even number of rows on a cob? Or that there is one piece of silk for every kernel? So far, we’ve discovered more than 3,500 uses for corn or corn products, including chewing gum, icing, fireworks, ethanol, antibiotics, soap, paint, vitamins, and film. One bushel (56 pounds) of corn can produce enough sweetener for 325 cans of pop, oil for two pounds of margarine, enough starch for a ton of paper, or 15 pounds of carbon dioxide fizz in soft drinks. And consider the beautiful mysteries behind the liquid corn of Kentucky, where a good day is spent sippin’ mash and talkin’ trash.

It’s possible that your personal summer corn fest comes without the cob. Maybe you enjoy your niblets freed and scooting around a plate. Maybe it’s hot-from-the-oven cornbread you crave, or huitlacoche, a corn-fungus delicacy in Mexico. You could be a polenta freak, or a corn-flake junkie who pours corn syrup on morning cereal. Whether it’s hush puppies or corn pone, tamales or tortillas, you are not alone.

Chef Rachel Rubin of Bobino is really just a Peruvian girl with nothing but love for the ear o’ plenty. Her menu last month included grilled young corn to accompany the octopus ceviche. Pop in to see what she’s planning this month with the organic fresh corn she gets in weekly. If you want to try the cob with something different, eat it Elote style, like they do at the Burrito Mercado in St. Paul. A fresh hot ear of corn is smothered with queso fresco (fresh cheese) and a sprinkle of chipotle. But if you can, try to eat it Katharine Hepburn style: Walk up to a stalk, pluck and shuck, and dig right in. As the late great Kate believed, 10 minutes off the stalk and it’s a whole other ballgame.

To make sure you understand the truly magical properties of corn, in some August of your life, make a pilgrimage to the maize mecca of Mitchell, South Dakota, and view the world’s only Corn Palace. It’s really a drive away from a cold winter with no corn memories.

He’s so vanilla, she said. She meant he was plain and simple, an accountant type with no spark, not an artist. She meant he was boring and uninventive, without passion and not worth my time. But when food is your language, definitions begin to skew. I understood her to mean he was delicious and seductive in ancient and darkly mysterious ways. That he remained unique while cultivating a universal appeal, worldly yet homey. That he was an artist and could show me the sweet nuances of life, all the while smelling like freshly baked cookies. If he truly was vanilla, he was certainly worth my time.

In point of fact, it’s hard to find anyone who truly doesn’t like vanilla. Some of us (although not the majority) go for the zanier ice cream flavors, but that’s hardly a full rejection of vanilla itself. Have you ever come across anyone on a strict vanilla-free regimen? On the contrary, vanilla seems to be doing a bit of a spotlight dance lately. Witness the vanilla flavoring in high-end vodkas, leading to vanilla martinis in fashionable hands across the land. Vanilla Coke, while marketing to a new generation, is really reviving an old classic, though I think it tastes like liquid frosting. And in the past decade vanilla has become a signature scent among marketers who peddle candles and perfumes for enticing the opposite sex. All this from a “plain and simple” plant?

The Totonaca people of the Vera Cruz region of Mexico have long known the divine properties of vanilla. Their ancestors were the first to cultivate the crop. They believed it to be a gift from the gods, with a mythology surrounding a pair of fallen lovers whose sacred blood marked the spot where a strong vine and beautiful flower grew to fill the air with the aroma of true love and beauty.

The lovely flower is what links vanilla to the vast family of orchids, of which vanilla is the only edible fruit produced. It starts with the climbing vine that is pruned and trained to keep within reach of workers. After three years, the vine is ready to bear the small, trumpet-shaped celadon orchids. These temperamental flowers bloom for one day and must be fertilized in order to produce vanilla beans. Fortunately not all the flowers open on the same day, but over a period of a few months. In Mexico, the native Melipone bee took on the Herculean task of pollination—creating a 300-year monopoly on its home turf. It wasn’t until the 1800s that hand pollination took over and opened up markets all around the world. The plant is sustainable within a 20-degree band around the equator. Today Madagascar and Indonesia grow the best and the most vanilla, with Tahiti following close behind.

The vanilla pods are ready for harvesting six to nine months after pollination. Growers need to have a bit of a gambling soul, because the longer they leave the bean on the vine, the bigger the pod and the more valuable the crop. But they risk that pesky old burr in the behind, vanilla rustlers! Somebody might sneak into camp and liberate those pods before you wake up. Robbery was so bad in Madagascar that growers began to brand the green pods with markings that survived the curing process.

It’s only after the curing process that the beans take on distinct flavors and aromas that differ so greatly among varieties. Like wine, vanilla nuances are affected by climatic differences, soil composition, and processing techniques. Mexican vanilla comes from indigenous plant stock and has a very smooth and creamy flavor. Bourbon vanilla originated from the same plant stock of Mexico, but was cultivated in the Bourbon Islands off Africa; this is the familiar and the most commonly used vanilla in extracts. Indonesia is the second largest producer of vanilla, with a vanilla that is woody, astringent and phenolic. Tahitian vanilla comes from the same Mexican stock, but has mutated over time into a separate species that is distinct in its own right. Tahitian vanilla tends to be sweeter and fruitier with a fatter bean and more floral fragrance than the other vanillas.

This worldly vision of vanilla might be shocking to those who know it only as the small brown extract bottle nestled in the cupboard between the baking powder and the cinnamon. But originally, it was all about the bean—extracts have only been available for the last 100 years. The first vanilla extracts were made by pharmacists searching for stomach soothers. Variations on the bean now include vanilla flavoring, imitation vanilla, vanilla paste, vanilla powder, double strength extract, etc.

But people these days are looking back to the bean. Definitely more expensive than the extract, the long dried pods look like something out of a voodoo recipe. To get at the good stuff you must delicately slice open the dried pod and scrape out the seeds into whatever concoction you choose. The sweet, damp darkness holds much of the flavor, but the pod still embraces its own fragrances and can be used for many more infusions.

Vanilla sugar is one of those rare treats from the bean. Chopped vanilla infuses granulated sugar with the mellow and soft tones of the pod, making your morning coffee and cereal a divine revelation. The locally made Golden Fig’s version seems perfectly balanced and can be used in baking and cooking, or dabbed behind the ear.

In past years, Mexican vanilla has fallen on hard times, with much of the former growing region dedicated to oil wells and orange groves. But a group of growers are working to re-establish ancient land rights and ritual techniques. These boutique vanillas are aiming to re-educate the world about the story of vanilla and many of them offer a unique vacation opportunity to witness firsthand the production of the sweet nectar of the gods.

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s food poetry is some of the most beautiful ever written. He transformed tomatoes into heavenly beings. His ode to wine should be every serious vintner’s mantra. Even ordinary and unpoetic subjects—the artichoke or conger chowder—receive his divine dressings. But as far as my searches have revealed, Neruda seems to have skipped the sausage. Does the tubular treat filled with tasty meat offend? Does it lack in characteristics worth lauding? Is the sausage so unapologetically phallic as to render sausage prose better suited to public bathroom walls than to literary antiquity? Still, I feel Neruda was remiss in ignoring the opportunity to glorify one of the most prolific foods created by man.

Strange and ugly though it may be—with its pale skin and lumpy contents—the sausage is something most people would rather not do without. What would summer be without a tasty bratwurst? Some of us can’t enjoy a ballpark game without a jumbo frank. Even the health-conscious have a hard time turning down the occasional link when cruising the brunch buffet. How can you not love a slice of something named mortadella, the sausage of death? A food adopted by almost every culture and created over and over with differing shapes, flavors and techniques, defined by the people who love it, deserves some consideration. I think it was Jimmy Dean who said, “My sausage, my country.”

Sausage is more or less a minced-meat mix stuffed into a tubular casing, and the practice of making it is thought to have originated with the concept of “saving the rest of the pig to eat later.” So winning did the technique prove that it was soon adapted for different situations, thereby changing the definition of a sausage and its composition.

First the filling. We may think first of pork or beef, but fish sausages have been around just as long. (And the sausage-loving Brits make one filled with cheese and leeks but no meat.) Second, sausage isn’t always tubular. That Scottish dare of a delicacy, haggis, is round, since its casing is usually the sheep’s stomach. And casing itself is the third factor. Natural casing may come from various areas of the animals interior, not just the intestines. Artificial casing can come from animals or plants. And some sausages are made with no casing at all, formed into a cohesive shape held together by composition.

These variables contribute to a complex and fascinating world of portable treats, but most sausages can be lumped into one of three categories. Fresh sausages are made of raw meat and need to be cooked before eating. Cured sausages have some raw meat, but have been dried or cured and are intended for keeping and slicing (think salami). And last, cooked or partially cooked sausages are either sliced and eaten cold or heated.

But, let’s face it, casing or no, jumbo salami or lil’ smokie, it’s what’s inside that counts. It’s the red pepper flakes or touch of fennel, the mingling of veal and pork or trace of cumin that create sausage memories—and distinct sausagieres. At Kramarczuk Sausage Co. in northeast Minneapolis, the deli case is jammed with sausages made from traditional methods passed down from one family member to another. On Saturday mornings you can wait in line for hunks of samples of their amazing meats, but you should definitely walk away with the garlic sausage—which will have you reeking pleasantly for the rest of the day. Or sit and gnaw on a sandwich while the smells blend with accordion music and Slavic banter from behind the counter.

Tradition merged with innovation and a healthy sense of humor might be the best way to handle sausage-making. If that be true, then the folks at Sausage Sister & Me have found the key. Armed with time-tested techniques and recipes from their German Poppa Joe, Cherie Peterson and Merry Barry decided to create a sausage company based in Old World tradition and contemporary fun. Instead of going for the straight-faced and serious sausage-as-artesinal-art shtick, their sausage ingredients are zippy and the names even zippier. Try their Leave it to Cleaver (a.k.a Minnesota Nice) made with pork, wild rice, grated carrot, and onions, or Ring-A-Ding Risotto made with chicken, rice, artichokes, mushrooms, and parmesan cheese. You may have caught the two siblings hawking their Twisted Sister (porketta sausage wrapped in a twist of dough on a stick) at the State Fair last year. If not, you can catch them at the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market. Maybe sausage shouldn’t be the subject of an artful ode. Maybe it lends itself better to something more fun, more lively. I feel a limerick coming on…

There’s nothing quite like a Door County Fish Boil to kick off the summer. Up on the sandy Wisconsin peninsula that’s known as the Martha’s Vineyard of the Midwest, a warm Friday night is nothing without a cold can of beer and a steaming kettle of fish. It’s a steadfast tradition and comforting and safe. But if you’re not a careful non-coastal Northerner, you might end up eating fish boil and breaded walleye sticks your whole life. If you never get beyond our Great or 10,000 other lakes, you might not realize that on this little blue planet, the world’s stock of fish is our largest and most diverse wild food supply. The number of edible species of fish is so great that no one has tasted them all.

It’s odd to think of fish as “wild.” Beyond sharks and movie piranha you rarely think of fish as being toothy and predatory. For the most part, they are thought of as docile—swimming, genteel creatures which aren’t even considered “meat” by many. Thai Buddhists, for whom vegetarianism has to do with reincarnation, will eat fish because the view is that they aren’t killed, but merely harvested from the water, like potatoes of the sea. The truth is, most fish will happily gobble up smaller fish as they have been doing since the time of the coelacanth. And ever since humans have been around, we have been gobbling them up.

Fish skeletons have been found at stone-age excavation sites and in Danish peat bogs along with bone arrows. The works of ancient Chinese and Greek authors contain detailed accounts of fishing techniques which remain the world’s favorites: line and hook, spear, and net. Fish, in all its forms and glories, has meant a great deal to many cultures. Easterners have recognized the benefits of fish for thousands of years; in China the fish is a symbol of regeneration and marital bliss, as well as abundance and prosperity. Witness, too, how Christians here at home value fish during Lent, and as an icon to be displayed on the back of the minivan.

There may be no more powerful emblem of fishy issues than the cod.

Also known as bacalao, cabillaud, dorsz, kabeljau, merluzzo bianco, torsk, and scrod, cod has been fished throughout the North Atlantic for hundreds of years. Initially thought of as “penitential” food because of its great availability and sad appearance when salted and dried, cod’s true destiny would prove to have a global impact. Because the fish breed prodigiously, large stocks have existed in the waters from the Bay of Biscay to the Arctic and back down to Cape Hatteras. “Icelandic cod” refers to the plentiful stocks in the areas around Iceland and the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. It is precisely these stocks that have tempted fishermen with the promise of greatness.

Mark Kurlansky, who wrote Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed The World, believes that the Vikings were pursuing these very stocks of fish when they stumbled upon a new land—America. The Pilgrims believed they could live off the wealth of cod in the New World, despite having no idea how, nor the equipment to do it. From Clarence Birdseye, who founded the frozen-fish industry with cod in the 1930s, to the present-day cod wars, Kurlanky details the rise and decline of the fish whose now-threatened status is still shaping world politics.

In fact, cod isn’t the only fish to swim in troubled waters. There are many who feel that the world’s fish supply in general is being overfished into extinction. Chilean sea bass is currently on the hit list among activists who boycot chefs and restaurants who carry endngered fish on their menus. Still others believe that boycotts are uninformed, not founded on real data, and can hurt or cripple small fishing communities. (Remember the swordfish scare in the late 90s?) All because a fish is fashionable.

With today’s obsession with protein and good fats, fish aren’t about to go out of fashion any time soon. When categorized by their fat content, they fall into three groups: Lean fish with less than 2.5 percent fat (cod, perch, sole), moderate-fat fish with less than 6 percent (trout, swordfish, bonito), and high-fat fish that can go as high as 30 percent but usually hover around 12 (yellowtail, bluefish, some salmon). The fish that are especially good for you are the ones packed with lots of Omega-3 oils—or “polyunsaturated oils” in Zone-speak. Good choices include pompano, tuna, herring, mackerel, sardines, Atlantic bluefish, or butterfish. As for protein, fish have a greater advantage over land animals because water supports their weight, leading to a less elaborate skeletal system and a higher flesh-to-weight ratio.

If you’re sold on international fish, but don’t have your schooner polished and ready to go, the best local source has long been Coastal Seafoods. They provide much of the seafood used by local chefs, and have a few well-stocked retail locations where they even teach classes about scary things like de-boning and wine pairing (newsflash: it’s not all about white). The key is to be open to new fish and new flavors—after all, it’s supposed to be brain food. If you’re wondering how much you need to consume for a positive effect, Mark Twain suggested “Perhaps a couple of whales would be enough.” But that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

What a funny quirk of verbiage that a bum car is called a “lemon.” There’s even a “Lemon Law” to protect us from people selling used vehicles with hidden flaws. This assumes the worst about people and, I think, slanders lemons. Calling a car a lemon should be a great compliment, akin to linking its heritage to Andre Citroen, the great French automaker. Back in 1949 his head was filled with visions of a new automotive standard, a small-engined car “designed to provide realistically priced transport to rural French men who had little interest or knowledge of motor cars.” The Citroen 2CV, that funky-chunky little icon of French motoring, was launched to assist in the post-war reconstruction of France. Seeing only the greatest of possibilities for his creation, Citroen ran true to the nature of his name. Like the citrus fruit he embodies, he was an optimist.

It’s not hard to see citrus as optimistic. Many of us choose to welcome each fresh new morning with a ritual glass of citrus juice. Throwing back a tall serving of sunny orange, pink, or yellow liquid is a signal of our willingness to take on the day and all it has in store for us. Hope—it’s not just for breakfast anymore. What could be more optimistic than lemonade? Not merely for the happy end-product of Life’s Lemons, but for every kid with a stand on the side of the road who is sure that she will make enough money to buy that Barbie Dreamhouse.

Optimism is inherent in a fruit with a tough, bitter skin which needs to be overcome to get to the juicy, drippy, tangy center. If it weren’t for the belief that something good can lead to something better, Florida’s number one export would be bingo chips.

Oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit, tangelos, pommelos, and even ugli fruit all owe their existence to the citron, a large, ungainly and rough-skinned oddball whose peel is prized above its flesh. It is widely believed that the citron is the progenitor of all citrus fruits. Although the exact place of origin is unknown, it is generally agreed that an ancient variety of citron took root around 8,000 years ago in the Near East, somewhere in India or the fruitful area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Excavations of Mesopotamian sites have yielded citron seeds dating back to 4,000 B.C., and the mummy-makers of ancient Egypt recorded their use as an aid in embalming.

It was the ever-optimistic Jews who had a great impact on the world of citrus, supposedly bringing the fruit to Israel from their imprisonment in Babylon around 500 B.C. Called “etrog,” the citron figures prominently in Jewish history. It appears on Jewish coinage, graves and synagogues, and was used as the handle for the ritualistic circumcision knife. The etrog is still used today in the Feast of Tabernacles ritual during the holiday of Sukkot. The original ritual called for a fruit of the hadar tree, or the cedar tree whose cone was called kedros in Greek. Kedros was Latinized as cedrus and this eventually turned into citrus.

As the Jews traveled across the Roman Empire, they brought their beloved citron with them, planting the seeds throughout the Mediterranean, where the plant would flourish. Some historians believe that it was Jewish horticulturalists who were commissioned by the Romans to develop the orange and the lemon, by grafting and cross-pollinating variations of the citron. They believe what the Talmud refers to as “sweet citron” is actually an early orange.

However the sanguine treasures were carried from culture to culture, citrus fruits came to be loved and cherished by almost all who discovered their fresh beauty. The Japanese used orange trees in fertility rituals and weddings because the tree bears flowers and fruits at the same time; the flower symbolized virginity and the fruit meant fertility. The Chinese used the dried fruits to repel moths from clothing. Arabic women distilled fruit essences and oils to cover gray hair, and the people in India still regard the branches of a citron tree to be a very lucky walking stick indeed.

Medicinally, citrus has been a wellspring of cures for such maladies as seasickness, pulmonary problems, poisonings, dysentery, halitosis, rheumatism, and possession by evil spirits. Clearly, it takes an optimist to prescribe OJ for the latter.

Columbus and his seafaring contemporaries knew that citrus fruits could prevent scurvy. He carried the fruits and seeds to the New World as part of his ship’s rations, spreading the crops throughout the Caribbean. Ponce de Leon is credited with bringing the orange to Florida in the 1500s, creating a future empire as he ordered his sailors to plant 100 seeds each wherever they landed.

Floridians have always been optimistic about citrus. Because of the 1906 hurricane, the pineapple culture of the Florida Keys was abandoned in favor of a new crop. Limes were planted, and the pickled fruit was sent to Boston where it was a popular snack for kids. Most of the businesses were decimated by the hurricane of 1926, but production rose again as a cottage industry when the fame of the key lime spread. If there’s one thing that’s more optimistic than citrus, it’s pie. Put the two together, forget about it. Locally, the Oceanaire Seafood Room has a killer key lime pie that’s as big as the happy-go-lucky head of a cheerleader!

Spinning the positive doesn’t have to be a big production. Your citrus lift can come from the simplest of places. Lucia’s adorns their mixed greens with an uncomplicated lemon vinaigrette that has brightened many a mood. And there’s nothing quite like a jumbo, citrus-jammed smoothie from Fresco on a bright spring day to put a kick in your step and make everything right with the world.

She’s bumpy and oddly shaped, often times covered with a film of dirt. She prefers the dark, the underground areas. She’s like the slightly stinky kid in class who keeps to herself but gets all her work done on time. You think you know her—she’s simple and hard working, maybe a little bland. And then one day your eyes open and you see more than the poor ugly visage, you see the potential within. She’s no ugly groundflower. She’s silky and soft, complex, sexy and worldly and, dammit, you want to take her to the prom.

Maybe it’s because we love the underdog, or a good Cinderella story. Whatever it is, the world’s love affair with the potato is long and far-reaching. According to the 5-A-Day cult, the potato is America’s favorite vegetable, followed distantly by empty-headed lettuce and onions. We most like to eat our spuds baked, mashed, and fried, in that order. Consuming around 126 pounds per person each year proves that for most of us, she’s a safety date. We’ll take our mashed with butter and salt, and our fries with a side of ketchup (or catsup, depending on your pedigree).

But then there are those of us who can’t have casual meals. Our relationships have to go deeper, we need to explore all facets, to see if the plain girl has a secret drawer filled with kinky fun. Considering the beauty of ice-cold vodka, satiny vichyssoise, and the addictive chip, I’d say the potato has been asked to dance a few times.

Like most late-bloomers, the potato’s road to popularity has been hard won. The Incas knew what they had: a hardy food source that could be grown in harsh conditions and used in many ways. Praying to potato gods, they used the tuber to measure units of time, heal broken legs, and prevent rheumatism. Having sacked the Incans for their treasures, the Spanish toted the potato back to Europe unaware of its true potential. In fact, the spud was ill-received by most Europeans. The misguided French believed them to cause leprosy, the Scots couldn’t find their mention in the Bible, and others saw their familial relation to deadly nightshade—and on that ground refused them as human sustenance. Sir Walter Raleigh, a potato cheerleader, gave some plants to Queen Elizabeth I, whose cooks threw away the ugly bulbous root section and prepared the stems and leaves. The result was horrendous, and the vegetable was banned from England for many years.

But the Irish were more sensible—or perhaps desperate. Raleigh introduced the potato to Cork in the late 1500s, at a time when the country was war-torn and struggling to feed itself. Quickly becoming the darling of farmers, the potato’s popularity was supported by the sheer volume it produced. The potato yielded more nourishment per acre than any other Irish crop. By the 1800s, the potato was the national food, so much so that some of the poorer counties relied entirely on it for survival. By 1840, the potato had done its part to grow the country’s population to eight million. While some foresaw the dangers of so many people depending on one crop, nothing was done about it. The blight which caused the Irish Potato Famine wiped out potato crops for five years, beginning in 1845. Almost one million people died from starvation or disease, and another million left the country seeking a better life, by and large in the New World. They brought their potato recipes with them and forever changed a new nation.

Back in the Old World, the potato was still seen as a food for prisoners or the poor. Then the humble spud found its European Prince Charming: Antoine August Parmentier of France. A prisoner of the Prussians in the Seven Years’ War, Parmentier was rationed three squares a day, which consisted solely of potatoes. He returned to his native land to find his countrymen starving, but incredibly still offended by the thought of eating potatoes. Like a Dr. Doolittle of the veggie world, he set about glamming up the image of our starchy girl. He resorted to shrewd PR tactics: He convinced Marie Antoinette to wear potato blossoms in her hair, which created a fashion stir. He stood guards around his potato crops by day, so that the peasants would steal them at night, thinking them precious enough to covet. He threw elaborate potato-themed dinners, which notables like Ben Franklin attended. Slowly but surely, the potato came up from the cellar and danced with other members of fine cuisine—in soups, gallettes, soufflés, aperitifs, and other dishes across the continent.

There’s no doubt that the potato has again come into her heyday, with the food renaissance of the last few years. Tater Tot casserole may have been edgy and new at one time, but now seems pretty pedestrian, as we seek Yukon golds, purple Peruvians, Russian fingerlings, and ruby crescents—spuds that go way beyond the traditional Idaho russet. Due to its many versatile properties — waxy, fluffy, starchy — this tuber can be put to the test by many different chefs in dozens of ways. She’s out on the scene as tarragon potato puree, rosemary potato bread, potato dumplings on many street corners from every culture, as well as in the potato pancakes under some of the best caviar in town. Even good old mashed potatoes have recently been seen on menus as smashed, crushed, and smooshed with accompaniments from chipotles to curries to wasabi. Watch out, the girl has gone crazy! If you doubt that the potato is the “it” girl of the hour, just try to be an Atkins devotee, and see if you can avoid the belle of the ball. If you truly look at potatoes, you’ll see that, like delicate snowflakes, no two are ever exactly alike, each is unique in its beauty. Deservedly so for this Cinderella story, gone from reviled to revered over the last 400 years.

My inner Mothra would be so proud. I had no fears that the gorgeous Icelandic woman sitting next to my husband at a dinner party was any competition for me, but that didn’t stop me from engaging the table with jokes told in rapid-fire English that I was sure she couldn’t get. It’s not bad to remember in this, the sappiest of all months, that there is a dark side to love. My dark side happens to be defined by monster movies along the lines of King Kong. Mothra may be my jealous side, and surely Gamera is present on my “less calm days.” But in every dark side there exists the glimmer of good, as in Godzilla. At first he may seem to want to pillage and burn urban centers of commerce and hydro-electric plants, but he can be turned and tamed, for the good of all.

This strange and spicy side of love is often ignored, and certainly not explored by amateurs, much like the wasabi sitting on that Bjork chick’s plate. I’m sure she saw it as merely a green glob of pasty yuck that need not be introduced into her safe meal. In fact, she seemd to be refusing to try it at all. As for the rest of us monsters, we choose to dance with the Japanese condiment’s bright heat and dinosaur roar.

These days it’s easier to find wasabi than a good print of Godzilla. Not only has the proliferation of sushi restaurants throughout the country raised wasabi awareness, but the word itself has been turned into a moronic ad campaign by those clever marketeers at Budweiser. And while more and more people are embracing the neon green, sinus-clearing paste of love, few really understand what it is. An informal dinner-party poll yielded these speculations as to what wasabi might be: fish guts, seaweed, Japanese mountain grass, flower pollen, and—my personal favorite—spicy wheat. Time to cut off the sake, I’m afraid.

Wasabia japonica is, as its scientific name implies, indigenous to Japan. It is not a member of the “spicy wheat” family, but a perennial herb of the Cruciferae, or mustard, family. It grows wild along stream beds and on river sand bars in wet, cool river valleys in the mountainous regions of Japan. The geographic range of wild wasabi runs from the northernmost islands to the southernmost, but production of the plant is centered on the interior section of the Izu peninsula and the Azumino plain tucked between the Japanese Alps in Nagano. The plant produces a rhizome, or an above-ground root-like runner, which is harvested and grated to form powders and pungent pastes.

While the plant occurs naturally in the wild, cultivation for commercial use is a trickier matter. For high-quality wasabi to flourish, it needs to be continuously washed over with pure, cold water. Obviously, glacial run-off allows for great irrigation in the upper regions where it is grown in terraces on sloping hills. But the plant is also being grown in the plains, with flat beds which must be banked by streams or diverted waters. Soil cultivation of the plant is also being explored, but this method has real problems. Even in ideal conditions, a wasabi plant will not reach maturity for 15 months—an awful long wait in the plant world, and an eternity in the human one.

Time is of the essence, because, like the three-headed alien Ghidrah, wasabi is taking over the world. Demand is up and there is high competition for the goods. In order to meet the needs of the current marketplace, there have been some adjustments to the traditional recipe. In fact, chances are the wasabi you’re eating contains no authentic wasabi whatsoever. Most commercial pastes sold in supermarkets and used at sushi restaurants are made from horseradish powder, mustard, and food coloring.

Compounding the demand for real wasabi is the mounting research that tells us how darn good the stuff is for you. The same compounds that provide the nostril-searing rush are known to be an effective treatment for food poisoning—thus it’s no accident that the Japanese use it so prevalently with raw fish. Asthma, blood clots, and even stomach cancer have all been treated successfully with wasabi, which has been used medicinally in Japan since the 10th century. Then there’s the really important application of wasabi—as a snack food. Dried wasabi peas and peanuts are invading markets across the country, and making special inroads in the coop community. The spicy little bar snacks can be found locally at Schuang Hur market on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis.

Wasabi may just be the monster crop of the new millennium. Pacific Farms in Oregon is currently the only producer of fresh wasabi in the USA. Their moist climate has proven to be a boon to farmers looking for a fresh crop. New Zealand is also exploring their wasabi growing potential, and even looking for people to come over, start a farm, and take a chance. If you think you want to start small, The Frog Farm will provide you with seedlings and cultivation instructions. (They glibly make it sound like a piece of ricecake).

Chino Latino, in Minneapolis, is currently using fresh wasabi from Pacific Farms with their sushi creations. Compared to the wasabi found in most joints, it does have a brighter snap and a grainier texture. Mainstream sushi-eaters often mix their wasabi into their soy sauce and then dip their fish. This masks the green monster’s potency a bit. The truly daring and the super-heroic plop a dollop right on top the fish, and go head-to-head with the dark side.

It was a very snowy January when I ran away to Prague. The family I stayed with lived in one of a cluster of monolithic stone apartment buildings on the outskirts of the city. The grey air outside the buildings smelled of coal and smog, and the air inside smelled of tea and cabbage. Each night after I returned from exploring the city, I would stop by the market to buy the beer for the evening, my contribution to the dinner. And each night I would be surprised by the ingenuity and creativity of the meal, which somehow had to contain cabbage. The Czech couple and their three-year-old daughter Dereska happily cleaned their plate night after night, as did I, with the help of a few Pilsner Urquells.

Cabbage and I, as is the case with most Americans, had not had a loving history. I rather disdained the vegetable for my memories of its bitterness and stinkiness. My first meal of boiled cabbage in their tiny, cramped apartment was choked down with a smile. The next night greeted me with cabbage soup, which proved tolerable. The following week was headlined by turkey and cabbage hash, potato and cabbage pancakes, and cream of cabbage soup and ham. During dinner the family spoke honestly about their economic struggles and their hopes for the future of their country, and sitting in the kitchen which was also laundry room and living room, I realized that they had never taken anything for granted, ever. Maybe it was this new insight or perhaps a simple wearing down of the taste buds, but cabbage had a new place of honor in my life. From then on, cabbage’s starring role in our meals seemed to signify stability. Lenka admitted to me that she often got tired of it, but for her family, the vegetable was cheap, healthy, abundantly available, and versatile. For me it became the flavor of strength and character.

Because it is so easy to grow in so many areas, cabbage has come to be known as commoner’s food, hardly the kind of thing that would show up on an epicurean’s table. Those with a love of cabbage understand that when prepared right, the subtle textures and flavors complement the richest dishes. When prepared with a bevy of different techniques such as stir-frying, steaming, braising, blanching, and sautéing, this Cinderella of vegetables deserves a night at the ball.

Many Americans may remember cabbage from the kitchens of their immigrant parents as they boiled the hell out of it, producing a smell that could ward off the Bolsheviks. Or maybe they remember their parents forcing them to eat it, not letting them leave the table (a la Joan Crawford) until their plates were clean. These parents—like my Czech friends—remembered a time when nothing could be taken for granted. But somewhere along the way, the first-generation children rebelled. Instead of learning to cook, they ordered take-out. Instead of forcing their own kids to eat something that was good for them, they went to the drive-through.

Have we sacrificed fortitude for ease? Have we given up on character? Do we necessarily have to eat stinky vegetables in order to gain it back? Happily, as Lin Yutang said, “Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.”

First of all, let’s be frank: Cabbage can be nasty. When you cook cabbage, especially when you boil it, the mustard oils and isothiocynates break down to form stinky compounds, including hydrogen sulfide, otherwise known as “that rotten egg smell.” The bigger insult is that the longer the cabbage cooks, the more smelly the compounds become, actually doubling in intensity between the fifth and seventh minutes of boiling.

One of the best ways to deal with cabbage is the way it has been prepared over thousands of years, through the process of fermentation. As far back as ancient China, there have been people preserving their cabbage in salt and vinegar. Documentation shows the builders of the Great Wall supplementing their rice diets with cabbage fermented in wine. This tradition took hold in nearby Korea, where today kimchi is the national condiment. Popular enough to be immortalized as a sassy cartoon figure, kimchi consists of fermented cabbage and other vegetables including spicy variations of red pepper powder, garlic, ginger, green onions, and radishes. Spiritually as well as culturally, this cabbage dish is special. Any variation of kimchi will always follow the Korean cosmology—a strict set of symbolic correspondences known as the Five Colors and the Five Flavors.

Genghis Khan is widely credited with bringing the fermented cabbage to Europe, where it was adopted by the Teutonic tribes. There, it was named sauerkraut, or “sour herb.” The Germans and Dutch thought so highly of it that they stocked all sea-going vessels with it, thereby curing the scurvy that had previously plagued their sailors. (Cabbage—and thus sauerkraut—is a very rich source of vitamin C; red cabbage has about twice as much as green.)

The Russians consider cabbage to be their national food. With cabbage dishes that can be incorporated into meals at all times of day, the Russians eat seven times the amount North Americans do. They believe their Schi (cabbage soups, including borscht) strengthen the sight and help chronic cough, and cabbage leaves wrapped around the head will relieve headache.

Yet for many, the pickling and flavoring can do nothing to hide the reputation of cabbage. Perhaps this will help: Instead of thinking of it as a stinky, lowly food, think of it as an ancient fortifier of armies. It feeds nations fighting for freedom. Living its noble life close to the ground, cabbage doesn’t need frilly vines or explosively bright flowers; it bears down and keeps out of the way. Change may take baby steps, so a good way to start is by steaming some of the beautiful leaves and seasoning with caraway and celery seeds, or dill, mustard, oregano, or tarragon. Once the warm virtue of cabbage seeps into your soul, you might find yourself delightfully force-feeding it to the loved ones around you.

As a blond, long-braided German girl, my mother was in charge of going to the bakery for the family. During Christmas, the most magical time, some German traditions hold that the world itself is transformed, that angels dance all around, and heavenly music accompanies the softly falling snow. Yet only the true of heart witness these miracles. My mother made her way through the Christmas markets from the bakery, her task of bargaining for a log of marzipan complete. Did she witness any of the wonders around her? Or did she sneak a small sample of her parcel? Knowing her slightly wicked ways, it is safe to assume the soft, rich feel of the marzipan in her mouth was all the glory she cared about.

Simply made from almonds, sugar, and maybe an egg white here or there, marzipan is as central to the holiday tradition as the Tannenbaum. If you grew up in a German family, your holidays probably consist of real candles on the tree, presents on Christmas Eve (not Christmas morning), odd little meat-pocket pies known by different names like “pierogi” and “kraut mitschle.” (I love those things!) And then there are the small, delicate sweets that have the shape and color of dazzling sugared fruits. But when you bite into them, they have the distinct flavor of almonds. Marzipan has been a treat for hundreds of years, eaten in bar form, dipped in chocolate, draped over cakes and cookies, or shaped into strange and wonderful figurines, from fruit to skyscrapers to heads of industry. But even though the Germans claim to create the best marzipan in the world today, it is undoubtedly a borrowed art, with many curious stories of origination.
To begin with, almond trees are not indigenous to Germany. The people who keep track of such things believe the almond tree originated in the warm climes of southwest Asia, and spread into Greece and Italy, where it was cultivated from at least 200 B.C. When early trade routes developed, the almond spread throughout northern Africa, to Spain, France, and eventually England and Scandinavia.

The source of the magical marzipan mixture—and it really has to be exactly right, or you have an unappetizing sugar-almond glob—is a bit harder to pin down. One story says the sultan of a Far Eastern province faced a famine in which only the almond trees survived. In order to keep his people in high spirits, and to keep their minds off their empty stomachs, he added rosewater to the crushed almonds and shaped them into whimsical creatures. The name “marzipan” might have been derived from Marci Panis, that is, St. Mark’s Bread, supposedly produced by way of a miracle during a medieval famine. Or it might have come from the “mazaban,” a slim wooden box in which sweets were presented throughout Venice in the 13th century. Over time, the contents of the box also came to be known as mazaban. As these boxed sweets left for other ports, they may very well have become marzipan in Germany, marchepane in England, marzapane in Italy, and massepain in France.

The tradition of making this gentle paste can be traced through the Moors, to the Spanish town of Toledo. At various times sacked and occupied by Moors, Christians, and Jews, this little steep-hilled town is known for creating incredibly rich marzipan, as it has for hundreds of years. Toledo was the Moorish capital in the sixth century, and was considered a most multicultural city indeed. The rest of Spain couldn’t care less about marzipan, but it is in the very fabric of Toledo’s history.

Marzipan traveled north and found a happy home in Lübeck, Germany. The old treasury accounts of this little burg show the importation of almonds from the 16th century onward. Throughout Europe, marzipan was believed to be a “curative,” with the power to cure such maladies as hopelessness and drunkenness. This gave apothecaries the exclusive right to produce it. Retailers were originally allowed only to trade in the raw ingredients, not the actual paste. Even under this medicinal guise, the rich know a delicacy when they taste it, whether it cures you or not. The aristocracy incorporated marzipan confections into their feasts, but the masses were left to beg for prescriptions. When more people got ready access to sugar, and supply was introduced to demand, the confectioners took over production, and artistic shapes and beautiful moldings became synonymous with the name. Toward the middle of the 19th century, production was industrialized and the agreeable result was a delicacy that was affordable to everyone.

While in some places industrialization can mean a loss in quality, Lübeckers believe in the pre-eminence of their recipes, and have earned the reputation as the standard-bearers of marzipan today. German law allows products to be named “marzipan” with a blended ratio of no less than 50 percent raw almond paste and 50 percent sugar. Lübecker marzipan holds itself to its own standard: 70 percent raw almond paste to 30 percent sugar. They even produce a premium marzipan known as “Edelmarzipan” which is 90 percent raw paste and 10 percent sugar! The higher the almond content, the richer and denser the product.

Because it was originally an extravagance saved for special occasions, it would be brought out only on religious feast days. Over the years, it developed into a holiday tradition that carried on even through the lean years. My mother tells me that, during the war, she and her sisters would devour the beloved treats even though they were diluted with ground peach pits. Mom says maybe the hardest year was when they had “ersatz marzipan,” made with mashed potatoes and almond essence. Each year, my mother and I get over to the Deutsches Haus in St. Paul (off 94 in the Sun Ray Center) before Christmas to load up on Mozart Kugeln—chocolate-dipped balls of marzipan with Wolfie’s head embossed on them—and Lübecker marzipan. And in homage to her braided days, I’m certain, Mom makes sure only about half of our take makes it home.

Is there such thing as “harvest time” anymore? You can buy apples in June, tomatoes in January, and there are bananas year-round at our local Farmer’s Markets. Nature’s bounty is but an email away to Simon Delivers. The harvest used to be a glorious time of celebration after the hard work of bringing in the stores for a long winter ahead. True, it has been a long time since many of us actually toiled in the earth for our munchies, but harvest time still means something.

The harvest is really the beginning of the Eating Season. Is it by chance that this season coincides with Fat People Weather? Being a devoted eater, I know that if I lived in Seattle, with fabulous Fat People Weather year-round, I would weigh 742 lbs. All spring and summer we run about with our bared skin, eating fruits and keeping fit. Come fall, the air cools, the colors pop, and we pull on our bulky sweaters and allow ourselves to indulge in caramel apples, fresh pie, stuffed turkey. For the few, football season means a solid running game, but for the many it means roasting a pig, and drinking a few hearty, malted beverages. Throw open the windows and break out the stew pots, it’s brisk enough to bake again.

And so we indulge, maybe not fully aware that some deeply buried genetic code is telling us it’s necessary to pad our bodies for the survival through the winter months. When that first snappy cold morning arrives, although we may now reach for the polar fleece, it still compels us to reach for the bite-sized Snickers bar in the first fill of the Halloween bowl. That’s when you know it’s begun, the Eating Season. And there is no other food that can herald the beginning of the season better than the squash, sitting there orange and grinning, as you furtively stuff wrappers in your pockets.

Squash really is the poster food of harvest time. There could be a fall festival squash pageant and all the contestants would be different in their quirky splendor. It kicks off with the iconic pumpkins of Halloween, followed by the decorous gourds and dense pies of Thanksgiving. Squash easily rolls into the many holidays of December in the form of acorn and butternut-squash side dishes and casseroles on the pot-luck buffet tables of yore. What better fruit—and it is a fruit—than one that was not only present, but became a symbol of the first official celebration of food in this country, the original Thanksgiving?

Native to Central America and Mexico, seeds from related plants have been found dating back more than 7,000 years, to around 5500 BC. Squash was being cultivated in North America by the time the Pilgrims landed, and had become a great staple of the Native American diet. Pumpkins were sliced into long strips, then either roasted over open fires or dried and woven into mats. We don’t know exactly which squash was brought to the first Thanksgiving, but we do know the colonists were smitten. They shortened the name from the Algonquin askootasquash, which means “eaten raw,” and directly began boiling, steaming, and baking it. According to tradition, the original pumpkin pie came about when the colonists sliced the top off a pumpkin, removed the seeds, and filled the belly with milk, honey, and spices, then buried it in hot ashes to bake. Of course, as this New World fruit gained popularity, its seeds were brought back to the Old World, and soon squash was snaking its way into the culinary traditions of the Spanish, French, and Italians. The Brits oddly like to refer to squash as “vegetable marrow” (and refer to that ball-and-paddle game as “squash”).

You may be surprised to learn that there are two categories of squash. Summer squash is characterized by the delicate-skinned gems that are best eaten straight from the vine. Their many shapes and colors can cheer up your garden and include yellow squash, zucchini, crookneck, and pattypan. Their skins and seeds are edible, and their flesh has a high water content making them easy to eat without a lot of cooking. Winter squash, on the other hand, should be eaten when they are good and ready, after they have basted in the seasons, and felt the first touch of winter air. They are characterized by their tough skin and seeds. The deep yellow and orange flesh of the winter squash is firmer and requires more cooking.

The winter bunch arrive in all shapes and sizes, their colors rivaling the fiery trees overhead. The hourglass-shaped butternut, with its fine-grained flesh, has a soft but tremendous flavor when roasted. Dark green with orange markings, the acorn squash is one of the most popular. The spaghetti squash, sometimes referred to as the “golden football,” never ceases to amaze as you scrape out the long yellow strands from the solid flesh. And of course, the pumpkin, which has become the grinning cheerleader for the squash family and an international icon for the first holiday in Eating Season.

Kicking off the season with a good batch of toasted pumpkin seeds or a deftly turned loaf of pumpkin bread may jump those eating instincts into overdrive. So much so that you can’t seem to wait until the third Thursday in November for more. If you feel so inclined to explore the flesh of the squash harvest yourself, you’ll find the book Zucchini, Pumpkins, and Squash by Kathleen Desmond Stang to be a fitting guide. There are great recipes and tips about how to become a squash guru.

If you’d rather celebrate the season at the table of others, make your way to the restaurant Auriga in Minneapolis. Chefs Van Eeckhout and Goodwin have long known the secrets of harvest food—they’ll seduce you with root vegetables and vine fruit and reinvent your idea of gorging during Eating Season. They have a pumpkin ravioli with duck confit, arugula, and a brown-butter sauce that will satisfy your seasonal cravings, and quite possibly root you there for the next three months.