Behold the Butternut!

There are produce choices we must make in winter. When in the grocery store, we have several options: anemic, pink, out-of-season tomatoes, veggies imported from the southern side of the globe, which brings up a few ethical/environmental issues, or frozen veggies, bound to wind up encrusted in ice in the back of the freezer.

Or, we can eat what's in season. And what's in season right now, and through winter, is my favorite vegetable, the butternut squash.

Where to begin? The range of size? So far this year I've bought a tiny, six-inch, four-pounder, a few medium, and the current choice, an 18-inch-high one weighing in around ten pounds. They are also just plain good-looking, with their tan peels and rich orange flesh. They're cheap--I get mine for 40 cents a pound at the farmer's market.

The possibilities with butternut squash are pretty endless. If you've got the time, inclination, and are as fascinated as I am with dishes that taste better the day after they're cooked, this risotto-like dish is worth a try. Butternut squash soup is one of my favorites, but I have yet to make a good homemade one--suggestions welcome!

One of the few recipes I've ever created that was successful is a butternut squash puree. You can mash if you prefer. Here it is:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel and halve a butternut squash (all weights welcome). Place onto a greased jelly roll pan. Take a head of garlic, and chop off just the top part. Wrap the garlic in a piece of foil, and put it on the jelly roll pan with the squash. Roast squash & garlic for one hour. Let cool about 5-10 minutes. Place squash in a large bowl. Squeeze garlic out--it should have a pulpy consistency. Add a tablespoon of butter and 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Puree with a hand blender, or mash with a potato masher until everything is mixed together. Sprinkle with more Parmesan cheese, if desired.

Butternut squash is a good source of potassium and fiber. It's very sweet. Australians refer to it as pumpkin. It originates from Mexico, whereas pumpkins originate from South America. It keeps for more than a month (but don't refrigerate it, unless you've peeled and cut it).

How to determine a fantastic butternut squash over a mediocre one? It should not have cracks. It should be heavy for its size. It can be easily peeled with a vegetable peeler--if you have a good one. I thought it was very difficult to peel until I peeled one at a friend's house last year. She had a super peeler, and I went out and bought the same one. Now I eat a butternut squash a week, rather than one per month. That's the difference a good peeler makes. That is the moral of this article--if you currently own a sorry veggie peeler, do yourself a favor and buy a better one. You will feel the difference. Oh, the power of gadgets!


Next up in my winter vegetables series: more root veggies, including a clarification of yams vs. sweet potatoes, currently a mystery to me.

Cream of Tartar

Now that I'm done with college, I'm educating myself by eating and drinking. While wine tasting this past weekend, a wine maker informed me that the tiny crystallized bits clinging to the wine cork were cream of tartar. He asked me if I had ever used cream of tartar, and I said I did, though I could only conjure up snickerdoodles in my head. Does anything else use cream of tartar? Didn't matter; there had been many tastes of wine and now this: an unexpected education. A school lesson hidden by alcohol!

And though the man seemed authoritative, and the tiny crust that had formed on the grape-stained end of the cork, I was slightly doubtful. Surely this man had never made snickerdoodles.

Here it is: Cream of tartar is is the common name for potassium hydrogen tartrate, or Potassium bitartrate. It is officially an acid. It results when tartaric acid is half neutralized with potassium hydroxide. Apparently only grapes have a useful amount of tartaric acid, and cream of tartar comes, indeed, from the process of making wine. But how does it transform from those little dark purple crystals into the white powdery stuff that goes into snickerdoodles? (For those who are truly unfortunate and have never had or heard of a snickerdoodle, I implore you to save yourself by making some immediately! I can't publish my mother's recipe, but here's a similar one for Grandma's Snickerdoodles.

The crystals on the cork are also called "beeswing," which the kind man at Retzlaff did not tell me about! They go through a purification process to become white and powdery.

The second mystery: why is it called cream of tartar? Obviously the tartar part is from the tartaric acid. But cream? It's powder. This will have to remain a mystery, as I searched and searched and learned nothing. It does enhance the creamy texture of frosting and other baked goods, though, so that could be the reason.


Other uses: to help stiffen egg whites, as in meringues. It also helps polish copper and brass cookware. Other fun facts: baking powder is 2 parts cream of tartar, one part cornstarch, and one part baking soda. Cream of tartar is also a leavening agent on its own, though pricier than baking powder. It is not an ingredient in, nor should it be confused with, tartar sauce. Lastly, it might be a cure for acne, though there seems to be some controversy on that note.

A World Full of Plantains

# The Caribbean cook will often use fried plantains as an accompaniment to beef or goat dishes.
# In Central America plátanos fritos are often served as part of a large breakfast of eggs, ham and refried beans and topped with a big dollop of crema.
# Known as tajadas de plátano in Venezuela, this lightly sweet side dish is an essential component of pabellón criollo.
# Nigerians love fried plantains, especially with fish, and call them dodo

Plantains

Perhaps I shouldn't have started out my enthusiasm-for-food blog with such a negative post about a food I don't like. Let's switch gears, shall we?

I have a new love as of late: plantains. They look like bananas, but are clearly superior. Or maybe just different. Plantains are generally cooked, not eaten raw, like a banana.

Plantains seem to be found in the cooking of tropical regions, and on a recent trip to Hawaii, I was going to make some for my friends. I was confused to find apple bananas, which look like plantains but are clearly not the same.

Research was in order, but who has time for research when you're in Hawaii? I cooked up the apple bananas in the same way I've made plantains before: fried with sour cream on top. They were fine, which is to say that they were less than spectacular. But it's hard to complain when you're eating exotic fruit while sitting on your balcony and looking at the ocean in Maui.

Turns out there are three types of plantains: cooking plantain, banana plantain, bocadillo plantain. And, amazingly, they are considered a starchy vegetable, not a fruit. This is because they are used mostly while still green--once they begin to develop spots and turn yellow, the starch level goes up and wham! It's a fruit. And the "trees" they grow on are actually herb plants, as they do not have trunks like trees do. Plantains are quirky, evidently, which might help explain my love for them. I have a love/hate relationship with bananas, but my feelings for plantains remain pretty constant. However, I seem to have misunderstood them.

Mofongo is a fascinating-looking recipe that I doubt I will attempt at home, but enjoyed watching Anthony Bourdain pursue, anyway. I plan to find it and eat it in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, or any other country I may travel to that makes it.

My affair with plantains has only begun, and I have a lot more research to do. It is used in so many cultures. This will have to be a multi-part entry.

Belgian Endive

There was a year in my childhood when I ate only macaroni and cheese or hot dogs. My parents, though not happy about this development, indulged, as otherwise I would have continued to look like a starving child from one of those tv ads with Sally Struthers. Maybe not so drastic as those children, but I was told more than once that I was all bones.

My eating habits continued to be peculiar. When I was fifteen, my dad gave me a rather uncomfortable lecture about how no boys would want to date me if I didn’t learn to eat hamburgers.

I will never be a vegetarian.

My year in Belgium transformed my palate and I learned to like almost everything. Vegetables, meats we don’t have too often here, such as rabbit, potatoes cooked every way imaginable. There were only three foods the Belgians couldn’t convert me to: endive, blood sausage, and mayonnaise. It seemed appropriate to begin with the food that has yet to win me over, despite all its trendiness….the evil endive, otherwise known in Dutch as witloof (white leaf).

Let’s trace the trend, shall we? Is there anyone who remembers eating endive ten years ago? Maybe well-to-do folks who were older than my parents. Endive still has not caught on in the U.S. the way it has in Belgium, where it is more of a way of life. As the Belgian Endive Board would have us believe, “It isn’t any one thing. It’s everything.” (Incidentally, this site induces guilt in me; it is so convincing it has me wondering what it is I have against endive. Then I remember the bitterness). It is cooked many different ways; my host mother was certain I would grow to love one of them. The most convincing, the clincher, the recipe sure to convert the majority, is endive with ham au gratin. Impossible to fail. Smother anything in ham and cheese sauce, and Emily is bound to like it. Anything, apparently, except for endive. In the midst of gooey cheese and the lovely smokiness of ham lurks the eternal bitterness of the endive.

I never recall having seen an endive for sale in an American supermarket before going to Belgium in 1998. When I returned, it seemed they were everywhere. Okay, perhaps a slight exaggeration. They were present. Now, they’re everywhere: preening at the supermarket, weaseling into the appetizers at my company’s tropical-themed summer party, lounging under ceviche. Endive even has its own entry on Wikipedia. In other words, it is a celebrity.

Let’s get to the root of Belgian endive. There, we find chicory. I only learned about the connection recently. It seems to work so: the roots are chicory (also used to make famous New Orleans-style coffee). Witloof/endive is grown by forcing the plant to grow in darkness or underground. The absence of sunlight is what makes the leaves white. If left to grow on its own, it will develop curly green leaves, used as a salad green in the southern U.S. Witloof even needs to be shipped in darkness; any exposure to light will cause the leaves to turn green. If you have not seen endive, it does have the appearance of a vegetable that Bunnicula got a hold of.

When did the trendiness start? It turns out I’m not insane, at least not on this front. The SF Chronicle declared endive the new Cinderella of the vegetable world in 1999. According to Mollie Katzen, you can create your own little bistro at home by making endive (perhaps you can even romance a certain type of person by preparing endive?) The Food Network is certainly fond of the vegetable; 37 recipes show up. Maybe I haven’t had endive every way that one can. If anyone has a recipe that you’re sure I haven’t had, please go ahead and try to convert me. I’d hate to be a foodie hipster, hating an innocent vegetable only because it’s become popular with the masses.