THE EDIBLE TRUTH OF SUFFERING: In the garden, difficulties become blessings

THE EDIBLE TRUTH OF SUFFERING: In the garden, difficulties become blessings

Last updated: January 26th, 2019

“What is there like fortitude! What sap went through that little thread to make the cherry red!” – Marianne Moore

Why vegetables grown in the stony, alluvial soils of freezing Maine have significantly more flavour than the photogenic ones produced in the year-round sunshine of California was a mystery until Maine’s renowned chef Sam Hayward went to a culinary cook-off at a northern California winery chosen for its perfect vegetable beds. Invited to pick whatever he needed to create a signature meal, Sam found himself running back to those beds again and again. No matter how many zucchini or beans or tomatoes he grabbed, he couldn’t achieve the intense flavour he was used to. “That produce looked gorgeous,” he reported, “but it had no taste.”

Sam was so perplexed that, when he got home, he went to his favourite farm and got exactly the amount of vegetables he’d picked the first time in California. Some of them were small and some a little bruised, yet when that produce hit the pot, flavour flowed. Sam took this news back to Frank the farmer and the two eventually figured out that the boulders shattered annually when the late winter thaw rudely heaves them from Earth’s depths continually aerate and enrich Maine’s soil with minerals. Melting snow, cresting rivers, and spring rains then irrigate it. This perfect setting is unfortunately followed by a growing season so short and erratic it becomes a survival marathon in which plants must overcome volatile extremes of hot or cold, dry or wet, in ever-changing combinations that breed unpredictable arrays of fungi and insects. Unavoidable self-defense requires vegetables to produce all the hormones and chemical compounds they can—and these are the very sources of their flavour. So, in the garden, difficulties become blessings.

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Madame Segard’s Carrot Salad

Mme. Segard, a Parisian bonne femme, is my French “mother.” She adopted me when her daughter Marie-France brought me home after we’d met in Tunisia. Marie-France, a stewardess, wanted nothing to do with cooking because her mother had “spent her whole life just doing that and never gets out of the kitchen to learn something important.” When she told me how sad her mother was that the only food her only child kept in the refrigerator were leftovers from first-class airline cabins, I volunteered to be the daughter her mother could pass her culinary expertise to. It was win-win because it got Marie-France off the hook and reinvigorated her mother, who took to cooking with new passion. Of all she taught me, this simple salad speedily whipped up for lunch while we prepared the traditional seven-course Christmas Eve feast is my favourite.

Serves 6

  • 7 medium-large carrots, peeled and grated
  • 1 bunch curly parsley, stems removed, leaves minced
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. freshly ground or cracked black pepper
  • 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
  • 1/4 walnut oil or fruity olive oil
  • Combine carrots and parsley in a serving bowl. (You can do this a half day before serving and store, covered tightly, in the refrigerator.)
  • Mix in salt and pepper.
  • Combine lemon juice and oil in a small cup, shake well, and pout over the carrots.
  • Serve immediately.

[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]© Sandra Garson, 2011. Reprinted from Veggiyana: The Dharma of Cooking: With 108 Deliciously Easy Vegetarian Recipes with permission from Wisdom Publications, 199 Elm Street, Somerville, MA 02144 USA. www.wisdompubs.org.

image: BeverlyLR (sxc.hu)