We've moved from lowering climate threats by eating locally-sourced food to worrying about gas emissions from cows. Both are necessary. A summer recipe for a mousse with strawberry sauce.
Your words about wild strawberries brought me back to the late spring of 1975, when we were living on an old 500 acre farm, on a hill looking down toward the Connecticut River in Southeastern Vermont. That spring, the old, abandoned pastures were carpeted with wild strawberries, and I was up early every morning to gather as many of them as my then-young knees and back could tolerate. They were no bigger than a fingernail, and truth be told, rather sour and not terribly pleasant to eat raw. Cooked with sugar into jam, however, they became ambrosial. I was like a madwoman, obsessed with foraging and cooking wild berries that summer. I gathered enough tiny wild strawbs to make close to a gallon of wild strawberry preserves. And then came the dewberries, and the black raspberries, and the lowbush blueberries, and blackberries, and the fox grapes.
Oh, such a lyrical description! Almost a film by some 'noir' director....It reminded me of USSR days when grandmothers would line roadsides with a small glass of wild strawberries to sell for so little , to give buyers a fleeting mouthful of edible scent...Thank you!
Another aspect to the presence or absence of asparagusic acid is the effect of pesticides and herbicides. Asparagusic acid is a photochemical that protects the plant from pests so when treated with pesticides the plant produces less of its own protectant. This is true of all of the vegetables and fruits we eat.
Lost in the research around organics is that organically produced fruits and vegetables have much higher levels of protective photochemicals. And these same compounds are protective for humans as well. Food research has always been underfunded- too difficult to monetize.
Julia, I so appreciate the light you shine on so many different foods and food ways!
Thank you; it looks like some editing occurred- the correct term is phytochemical or phytonutrient not photochemical. And wonderfully these compounds also provide a lot of flavor!
Some predictive text corrections are infuriating. Others mildly amusing to some. Whenever I type Scots I always get Pants. My father was a Scot and definitely not 'pants'.
I think this also indicative of why many people don't like tomatoes: they've never had a good one! The flaccid, flavorless ones you get at most restaurants -- especially ones on a sandwich -- can't hold a candle to a good, fresh tomato in the late summer. But, they're only a small window in which they're really good for most of us -- so, we suffer with ones shipped in from warmer climes or grown in a greenhouse, and boy, do we miss out.
A good tomato is one of life's serious treats. They're called a 'love apple' for a good reason. Eaten off the vine, warmed by the sun, a tomato is so far from the shrink-wrapped supermarket item it's hard to express. They are the perfect exemplar of how wide is the mark between something grown in a poly-tunnel fed by additives, and a vegetable grown naturally in the open air responding to whatever Nature throws at it. And even those grown in Nature have their own competitors: I've just come from eating tomatoes in Georgia (the country not the state). They knock the wonderful tomatoes of Italy into a cocked hat.
Your words about wild strawberries brought me back to the late spring of 1975, when we were living on an old 500 acre farm, on a hill looking down toward the Connecticut River in Southeastern Vermont. That spring, the old, abandoned pastures were carpeted with wild strawberries, and I was up early every morning to gather as many of them as my then-young knees and back could tolerate. They were no bigger than a fingernail, and truth be told, rather sour and not terribly pleasant to eat raw. Cooked with sugar into jam, however, they became ambrosial. I was like a madwoman, obsessed with foraging and cooking wild berries that summer. I gathered enough tiny wild strawbs to make close to a gallon of wild strawberry preserves. And then came the dewberries, and the black raspberries, and the lowbush blueberries, and blackberries, and the fox grapes.
Oh, such a lyrical description! Almost a film by some 'noir' director....It reminded me of USSR days when grandmothers would line roadsides with a small glass of wild strawberries to sell for so little , to give buyers a fleeting mouthful of edible scent...Thank you!
Another aspect to the presence or absence of asparagusic acid is the effect of pesticides and herbicides. Asparagusic acid is a photochemical that protects the plant from pests so when treated with pesticides the plant produces less of its own protectant. This is true of all of the vegetables and fruits we eat.
Lost in the research around organics is that organically produced fruits and vegetables have much higher levels of protective photochemicals. And these same compounds are protective for humans as well. Food research has always been underfunded- too difficult to monetize.
Julia, I so appreciate the light you shine on so many different foods and food ways!
That's rivetting! I had no idea. Makes so much sense, including the reason why food research is underfunded. Thank you so much for this knowledge.
Thank you; it looks like some editing occurred- the correct term is phytochemical or phytonutrient not photochemical. And wonderfully these compounds also provide a lot of flavor!
Some predictive text corrections are infuriating. Others mildly amusing to some. Whenever I type Scots I always get Pants. My father was a Scot and definitely not 'pants'.
I think this also indicative of why many people don't like tomatoes: they've never had a good one! The flaccid, flavorless ones you get at most restaurants -- especially ones on a sandwich -- can't hold a candle to a good, fresh tomato in the late summer. But, they're only a small window in which they're really good for most of us -- so, we suffer with ones shipped in from warmer climes or grown in a greenhouse, and boy, do we miss out.
A good tomato is one of life's serious treats. They're called a 'love apple' for a good reason. Eaten off the vine, warmed by the sun, a tomato is so far from the shrink-wrapped supermarket item it's hard to express. They are the perfect exemplar of how wide is the mark between something grown in a poly-tunnel fed by additives, and a vegetable grown naturally in the open air responding to whatever Nature throws at it. And even those grown in Nature have their own competitors: I've just come from eating tomatoes in Georgia (the country not the state). They knock the wonderful tomatoes of Italy into a cocked hat.
Tomatoes straight from the vine are truly unmatched. Georgia’s tomatoes sound incredible!
Life is too short. Add a tomato eaten in Georgia to your bucket list!