A recent visit to the Greenmarket in Union Square startled me with spooky Halloween-like vegetables! We shift seasons with strange hybrids and farmers who let nature run its course. Here’s a guide to a few items that will add to your bloodcurdling biodynamic buffet!
These days, you’ll find regal-looking purple broccoli resting up next to the traditional green trees. It comes from Hawthorne Farms (biodynamic and organic) so the color isn’t a GMO induced phenomenon. It’s simply farmers having frightening, freaky fun.
Summer is over but the baby chard is still widely available in shades of 1980s neon pink, orange, and yellow. Forget dressing up as a Power Ranger, a baby dressed as chard would have a very colorful costume!
Just as varied in color is the Indian corn that starts cropping up at the market around this time. It’s hues of maroon, yellow, red, and sometimes even a purplish blue add to tablescapes and radiate the feeling of autumnal harvest.
Celeriac starts to make its debut around this time as well. Harold McGee calls it “swollen,” so you can get an idea of how bulbous and bizarre the root is. Celeriac looks like a giant mutated white radish with knobs and growths all over it (you could use is as “Frankenstein’s brain” at a Gymboree party and really shock some six year olds).
It requires a lot of peeling to get to the tasty, edible part, but it’s well worth it. It tastes like celery but without any bitterness. Many New York chefs will accompany fall and winter entrees with celeriac puree, and it’s not to be missed (especially if they combine it with apples).
Broccoli Romanesco is surely the wackiest of the fall veggies. Its green leaves flank a conical head of mosaic-ed pea green nodules. The brainish fruit is a nutty, creamy combo of cauliflower and broccoli. However, it’s usage as a creepy tumor for a haunted house may be more appropriate.
Of course, all of these Greenmarket goodies have their culinary purposes, so as the ghosts and goblins line up, you might as well give them a taste of their own medicine!
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