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‘Eat a vegetable you’ve never tried;’ Adventure leads to artichoke appetizer, amaranth and Asian greens

7 min read
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Cactus, anyone?

Not for horticulture or house plants, but for dinner?

Allow me to explain.

The Observer Publishing Co. Health and Wellness Committee issued a 30-day “healthy habit challenge” during a recent month.

Employees received a list of 30 healthy things to do on any given day, such as skipping caffeine, walking five miles, consuming a half-gallon of water, reaching out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while, or climbing steps instead of ascending via elevator.

One task that proved challenging for adventurous cooks and consumers: try a new vegetable, one that you’ve never before eaten.

When it came to untried vegetables, I could think of three: celeriac (big bulbous thing that looks like a rutabaga, but drained of color) salsify (resembles a dark-skinned parsnip) and fennel bulb. (I’ve eaten and seasoned with fennel seeds and I’ve probably eaten food made with fennel in restaurants, but I’ve never bought this bulb and cooked it.)

Without making a trip to the Strip District, I perused local fresh produce aisles with the challenge in mind.

Barbara S. Miller/Observer-Reporter

Barbara S. Miller/Observer-Reporter

Turmeric root can be used like ginger root – grated or sliced to add spice to cooked dishes. The green chayote is mild like zucchini, but it retains crispness when sautéed.

Looking at the frozen food case in a grocery chain, I saw bright green edamame (been there; not bad); the “green du jour” kale was prevalent (you can’t avoid kale – it’s everywhere, from smoothies to baked snacks, salads and side dishes); and sprouts aux Brussels to seemingly, Zanzibar.

Back to the beginning of the alphabet, I checked the flour and grain offerings and came across … amaranth! OK, it lurks in loaves of 17-grain bread, but I wouldn’t be able to describe its taste. It might be stretching the definition of “vegetable,” but if you use the categories of animal, vegetable or mineral, it would qualify as a veggie.

I read the directions and the amaranth prep was basically boiling it and serving it as a hot cereal.

Its appearance reminded me of Cream of Wheat. And its taste was bland, bland, bland. It had grainy texture, so perhaps I should have rinsed it before cooking – some of the spoonfuls were downright gritty.

Harking back to childhood chocolate cereal, I mixed it with both cocoa and pumpkin pudding I had baked that day – think pumpkin pie without the crust – to make it a bit more palatable.

Seeking something jazzier than amaranth, I tried fresh turmeric root, grated to mix with water and steep for a gingery, golden-orange tea.

On the bland side, I bought a chayote, which was described online as being something like a zucchini.

An easy recipe was to fry it with potato slices and onion. Pan-fried zucchini becomes very soft, but the chayote remained crisp, resembling, but not tasting like, a green apple.

They have chayote in the produce case at the Las Palmas store on West Chestnut Street in Washington, where there also were jars of “nopales,” prickly pear cactus strips with onion slices. I’ve eaten cactus jelly, but I don’t know that I’ve consumed it in what appeared to be condiment, savory or pickled form.

Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter

Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter

Agustin Berumen, manager of Las Palmas, holds up guajes pods that are sold in the store. The pods grow on trees and the beans inside are taken out of the pods before eating or cooking.

Las Palmas also had fresh cactus paddles and spineless bagged cactus already diced. I chose the latter, took it home, sauteed it in olive oil and ate it with scrambled eggs, as Las Palmas manager Augustin Berumen suggested.

“This is mild,” Berumen said.

Diced cactus looks much like green pepper, but, when raw, it is brighter. The color dulls when cooked. Like okra, sauteed cactus gives off a thick liquid that can be described as “viscous.” Nutritionally, it’s a source of potassium, magnesium and Vitamin C.

Word of a potential story spread throughout the company, and colleagues served up their reactions.

City Hall ace reporter Katie Anderson is a vegetarian, so finding a vegetable she hadn’t tried was truly, as in the name of the contest, a challenge.

While I stayed with the Western Hemisphere, my colleague looked to the Far East.

Anderson found an Asian green in a produce section that were new to her. It was during the romaine lettuce e. coli scare that she chose what turned out to be bok choy.

Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter

Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter

Cactus can be found raw or canned with onions, inside Las Palmas on West Chestnut Street in Washington.

She was consuming her bok choy raw, expecting its white stalk to be crisp like celery. It was, instead, rather rubbery. The bitter leaves left her not wanting to taste bok choy any time soon. To be fair, when Asian restaurants serve bok choy, it’s typically stir-fried.

Photojournalist Holly Tonini took on the challenge by choosing avocado, not actually new to her, but presented in a new way, and not on toast.

“I don’t know why we as a nation must put avocado on everything but I just did it with my scrambled eggs this morning,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

“Does that make me hip? It probably doesn’t count as a new veggie for me since I’ve tried guacamole before but the eating of it in diced pieces instead of it being smashed with added ingredients is a new one.”

The challenge included not only workers in Washington, but also the Waynesburg bureau and The Almanac weekly publication.

Eleanor Bailey, award-winning sportswriter for The Almanac, told her own veggie tale:

“My vegetables were hardly exotic as I never eat them! Do potatoes count? I eat way too many of those.”

We procrastinators tend to save the hardest challenges for last, and Bailey was no exception.

She wrote in an email that “by shear luck,” she was invited to a dinner party toward the end of the challenge month. They were reciprocating for a dinner in December when Bailey served homemade lasagna, salad and cheesecake.

Surprise! When Bailey went to the couple’s home, she found they were serving whole artichokes as the appetizer.

“I nearly died when I saw the thing on my plate,” she recounted.

“I had never eaten an artichoke before let alone a whole one. I believe it was grilled.

“I learned that you do not eat the leaves just that little bit at the bottom and eventually you get to the heart.

“To my surprise I actually liked it!”

Rounding out the feast was a spinach salad with strawberries; scallops; potato medley (both sweet and white) that was baked or broiled; and cherry dump cake.

Bailey described it as, “All in all, the healthiest meal I have eaten in a long while…. All in all, a great night of healthy eating and reconnecting.”

As the end of the month approached, Bailey still had to consume a vegetable of which she was not particularly fond “to complete the contest, which I only entered because I wanted to win.”

Colleague Harry Funk came to her rescue with none other than the green du jour.

“He assured me that I would not like kale,” she wrote. “Nobody likes kale.

“Harry went home for lunch and brought some kale back for me to try. I want to say, initially, the taste was repulsive…. So that counts, right?

“I guess, as with all vegetables, it is an acquired taste.

“I ended up eating the whole baggie full of fresh kale Harry brought in for me to try. I figure since Alzheimer’s runs in the family, I will start eating kale to ward off the disease.”

There’s no word on whether we’ll be faced next year by another 30-day health challenge, or, if we are, will “try a vegetable you’ve never before eaten” again be part of the mix.

Celeriac and salsify, stay tuned. Someday…

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