Throughout my life, I have found that maintaining a positive outlook has helped me achieve many good things. At the risk of sounding like a self-help book author, I will only say that, when I have put ideas out there that I truly believe in and that are for the benefit of others, they generally come together. Such was the case recently, when on a trip to Boston I took time to visit Fenway Victory Gardens.

As many readers know, I am the co-founder of the Million Gardens Movement (MGM), which I launched last year as a partnership between Modern Farmer and Kimbal Musk’s Big Green nonprofit organization. The goal of our movement is to see one million new gardens planted in North America over the next 12 months. Why? During the COVID-19 lockdown that began in March 2020, we witnessed a spike in interest in our home gardening stories. As we dug further, we found several reasons for that newfound interest. Some people were just looking for a means of maintaining their sanity at a time when leaving their homes was not possible. Research has shown that gardening helps reduce stress and anxiety, and it can boost your mood as much as some types of exercise.

But the COVID-19 pandemic also revealed a startling level of food inequality in our society. As the pandemic set in, one in four Americans skipped a meal or had to rely on some form of government food assistance. It also reminded us that 24 million Americans live in food deserts where they lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The Million Gardens Movement is primarily designed to address this issue—to reconnect people to their food source.

We borrowed the idea for MGM from the victory gardens that were popular during World War II in the US, Canada, the UK and other countries. Introduced and promoted by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942, victory gardens were designed to supplement food budgets so that the government could support soldiers overseas. The support required food rations at home of items such as meat, eggs and canned goods. People were encouraged to grow their own vegetables in their backyards, parks and playgrounds. At its height, there were an estimated 20 million victory gardens across the country, supplying 40 percent of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the US.

In the US, the only remaining continuously operating victory garden from that time is Fenway Victory Gardens in Boston. Next year, it will celebrate its 80th year of uninterrupted operation. This 7.5-acre plot hosts 500 individual gardens that are cared for by 420 local gardeners.

Initially, I decided to pay a visit to Fenway Victory Gardens to take a few photos and read the information boards in order to inform myself. I asked the taxi to wait for me, thinking I would spend five or so minutes browsing. The experience was somewhat different and inspirational.

As I was wandering down the path, I noticed a group of people working away in one of the plots. I stopped to say “hello” and a woman in a big hat and dirt-laden clothes looked up, smiled and approached me. She shook my hand and, as I explained what I was doing, introduced herself as Pam Jorgensen, president of the Fenway Garden Society Inc., the nonprofit that oversees the running of the Fenway Victory Gardens. It was a chance meeting, and I was delighted to run into the perfect person to enlighten me on the gardens’ history. I scrambled for my phone, turned on my voice memo and asked to interview her. She was suspicious at first, but as I explained my mission, she led me to a park bench and our conversation began.

Jorgensen walked me through the history of the gardens, describing how they managed the entire plot during World War II using a horse-drawn plough. She told me it’s the most diverse organization for which she has ever worked. There are a total of 14 languages represented by the citizens that tend to the individual gardens, with a range of ages. The oldest gardener is 102 years old and has been gardening his plot for more than 50 years. Some garden to grow vegetables, others for their mental well-being. She puts herself in the latter category.

During the 1970s, there was a movement to destroy the site and build a parking lot, but a local hero by the name of Richard D. Parker fought against it and eventually prevailed. There is a memorial in his name located in the gardens.

I left her feeling inspired, and I was relieved that my taxi driver did not abandon me. I feel stronger than ever that our MGM is a worthy effort. If Roosevelt could inspire 20 million victory gardens, certainly we can achieve one million. Perhaps, we are not fighting a real war, but we are fighting for a healthier and more food-secure future for our children.

Visit MillionGardensMovement.org to learn more about the movement.

The post America’s Oldest Continuously Operating Victory Garden appeared first on Modern Farmer.

I am a passionate cook and I do get excited when I run across a new recipe that is both unique and delicious. But the number of ingredients I can ingest is finite. And it’s not often that I run across a recipe that I feel is a show stopper.

I always enjoy the backstory of cookbooks and what motivated a given chef toward a certain cuisine, philosophy or style. If I find the story interesting, I look more closely at the recipes, which is what I did with chef Gregory Gourdet’s new book, Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health.

Gourdet, the son of Haitian immigrants, grew up in Queens. He dropped out of pre-med and enrolled in the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, before he eventually lucked out with his first job at New York City’s Jean-Georges flagship restaurant.

His early years weren’t easy, though. Around this time, Gourdet also fell into an intense multi-year spiral of drug and alcohol abuse. When, years later, he eventually had his “aha” moment, he did what many recovering substance abusers do. With equal intensity, he plunged into health and fitness: yoga, CrossFit and jogging.

His cookbook contains 200 recipes that are free of gluten, dairy, soy, refined sugar and legumes. A lot of them are Paleo-friendly with a focus on superfoods (high nutrients, best fats, with most minerals and antioxidants). Having lived my own life on the Mediterranean diet and having conducted my own six-month experiment as a vegan, some of these recipes piqued my interest (except for the excluding legumes part). A lot of his recipes have a Haitian influence and I love Haitian food, which is often spicy. He even mentions Haitian spicy peanut butter, which my foundation produces as part of its poverty alleviation work in Haiti.

I browsed through all the recipes and decided to try my hand at his Poule Nan Sos dish. I love stewed chicken dishes and it’s not often I make ones that are spicy.

I followed the recipe instructions carefully, but I made a judgment call to add canned tomatoes to the tomato paste for which the recipe called. The 1/2 cup of paste seemed insufficient for the three pounds of chicken. It turned out to be a mistake as the end product was more watery than it should have been. Also, the peppers we purchased weren’t nearly hot enough, so the dish didn’t get the kick it deserved. Having said that, the flavors were delicious and I would recommend trying this dish for yourself.

The following is an excerpt from EVERYONE’S TABLE by Gregory Gourdet and JJ Goode. Copyright ©2021 by Gregory Gourdet and JJ Goode. Published by Harper Wave an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.

POULE NAN SOS
Serves 4

When I was a kid, we often left Queens on Sunday mornings to visit Mémère, my paternal grandmother, in New Jersey. Along with warm kisses and a few words of broken English, this chicken stew would greet us. Its official name (poule nan sos in Haitian Creole, or “chicken in sauce”) is quite an understatement. The meat is marinated
overnight with onions, garlic, thyme, and chiles along with citrus, the fruits juiced and then rubbed forcefully onto the chicken to access the fragrant oils as well. After the meat takes on all that flavor, it’s stewed with the marinade and loads of bell peppers for a satisfying, thrilling stew. This dish is Haiti, something we make time and
time again. I suspect you will, too.

For Marinating the Chicken
3 pounds mixed bone-in chicken
thighs and drumsticks, rinsed
and patted dry
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1 juicy orange, halved
1 juicy lime, halved
1 juicy lemon, halved
2 medium yellow onions, cut
into 1/8-inch half-moon slices

8 garlic cloves, roughly sliced
2 Scotch bonnet or habanero
chiles, cut in half and sliced
thin
1/4 cup fresh thyme leaves

For the Dish
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1⁄2 cup tomato paste
1 tablespoon kosher salt

2 red bell peppers, seeded and
deveined, cut into long, thin
slices
2 yellow bell peppers, seeded
and deveined, cut into long,
thin slices
2 cups chicken stock, salted
homemade or store-bought
Small handful roughly chopped
parsley sprigs

MARINATE THE CHICKEN
Put the chicken pieces in a large bowl and season with the salt. Squeeze the citrus halves over the chicken, then spend a minute or so rubbing the cut sides of the citrus against the chicken. Add the onions, garlic, chile, and thyme and toss well, rubbing the chicken as you do.
Cover and marinate in the fridge for at least 12 hours or up to 48 hours.

MAKE THE DISH
Preheat the oven to 375 ℉.

Remove the chicken from the marinade, guiding any stuck-on aromatics back into the bowl. Set a strainer over a small mixing bowl.

Pour the marinade through the strainer, reserving the solids and liquid. Pat the chicken very dry with paper towels.

Heat the oil in a wide heavy, ovenproof pot (I use a 31/2-quart braiser) over medium-high heat just until shimmery. Cook the chicken, skin-side down, occasionally turning the drumsticks but not the thighs, until the skin is deep brown about 8 minutes. Transfer the chicken pieces to a plate.

Reduce the heat to medium-low, add the tomato paste and salt, and cook, stirring often, until it turns several shades darker, about 3 minutes. Add the bell peppers and the reserved solids from the marinade, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the peppers soften slightly and take on a little color, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Return the chicken to the pan, skin side up and in a single layer, then take a minute to pile the peppers, onions, and other aromatics on top of the chicken. Then evenly pour in the reserved liquid from the marinade along with the stock. Cook in the oven, basting every 15 minutes to coat the chicken with the peppers and sauce, until the sauce has thickened slightly and the meat pulls off the bone with a gentle tug from a fork, about 1 hour. Garnish with the parsley and serve.

The post Frank Cooks: Everyone’s Table appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But I can now say The Flavor (that’s Flavour for our Canadian readers) Bible, by authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, is a must have in every kitchen. It’s not actually a cookbook: It’s more of a book that will educate you about how flavors work and what food categories go together best. The book is packed with tips and information about every ingredient imaginable.

I found this book very useful, as I taught myself to cook in my early twenties. (I recently decided to take professional cooking lessons.) I learned to make great dishes by simple trial and error. You can always tell by the body language of your dinner guests if your dishes truly resonate and, in most cases, my guests seem to love my cooking. However, there are those times when you know you have messed up and not understanding how flavors work is one of the most common mistakes made by homecooks. A great example and a tip I learned from reading this book

was the common overuse of basil in tomato sauce. I had learned to temper the amount of basil through trial and error, but, had I read this book 30 years ago, I would have learned that the overuse of basil results in a bitter flavour. And the same goes for rosemary.

The first thing the book teaches is that there are basically only four flavors: bitter, salty, sour and sweet (five if you include umami, which is a savory meaty flavor). These flavors have certain features that you can combine in specific ways and often serve a purpose, such as stimulating appetite. Salt is nature’s flavor enhancer and also stimulates thirst. It’s why they serve you salty peanuts in a bar. Its use is universal and it has been a staple for both flavor and preservation of food since before recorded history. It was an indispensable commodity and the Romans even paid their soldiers with salt.

The book also talks about the “X” factor that impacts food experience: all

the things that are perceived by our other senses. Fragrance, aesthetics and location are all important factors. Last summer, I wrote an article about finding the best tomatoes in the world, and I had to admit that tasting tomatoes while in Italy makes them taste better partly because, well, you are in Italy! It’s the romance and all the other emotions that being physically present there helps bring to the surface.

Some of the tips you will pick up from this book are things you might already know. For instance, tomatoes and basil go together like Netflix and chill. And peanut butter is great with bananas. But did you know that parsley goes well with bananas or that white chocolate works well with caviar?

I put the book to the test recently when I was making a recipe for a cod salad with roasted potatoes and olives from Gino’s Hidden Italy by Gino D’Acampo. The recipe called for juniper berries, which I could not find anywhere. I looked up juniper berries in The Flavor Bible and discovered that gin (which is made of juniper berries) works well as a substitute. So, I used gin and the salad turned out great.

You will also learn some interesting facts as you browse through the book, such as the fact that bitterness suppresses sweetness, or that fried foods need a big zap of acidity to get through. You’ll learn that cucumber and mint are “cooling” foods and that nutmeg is a “warming” food. I always wondered why my mom used nutmeg in her meatballs. It’s a winter food. 

I will keep The Flavor Bible close at hand from here on in. It will be especially useful when I need to substitute ingredients I can not find and help me be more creative in my cooking.

The post The Flavor Bible Gains a New Disciple appeared first on Modern Farmer.

When the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee advocated for eating less meat in 2015, various groups in the meat lobby took umbrage and lobbied Congress. And the recommendations were never approved.

Our foods are laden with additives that are meant to enhance flavor, color and shelf life that research has shown are either bad for people to consume or inconclusively so. I came across a 2019 article recently about a blogger called Vani Hari (or the Food Babe) who researched the differences in the ingredients listed on food labels in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

Hari showed how these lists are much longer on American products than those from the same brand in the UK. It’s shocking how many ingredients are in US food products that are simply not allowed in other jurisdictions, including Canada, where I live. 

Hari singled out brands such as Cadbury, Quakers and Kellogg’s as some of the worst offenders. Artificial dyes are very common in American food products. “Although artificial dyes are common in America, that doesn’t make them safe to eat,” Hari wrote. She believes that U.S. companies continue to sell the artificial ingredient-laden products because they’re “cheaper to produce” and “they can get away with it.”

This information launched me into action, rummaging through my kitchen cupboards to examine the ingredient lists on the foods I eat. Two caveats to this are that, generally, I eat only healthy foods, which made it difficult to find much of the nasty stuff I had read about. And secondly, as I mentioned, I live in Canada, where ingredient identification requirements are more similar to Europe than those of the US. Still, I found a few ingredients that were difficult to pronounce and needed further examination.

I stopped eating cereal long ago, but I found an old box of Kellogg’s Vector,  which I kept in case my kids wanted it. For some reason, I always thought of it as a less bad cereal than say, Lucky Charms. But Vector contained high-fructose corn syrup, which is used in many processed foods, including sodas and snack foods. This can contribute to unwanted calories, leading to weight gain, diabetes and other health conditions. While shopping the other day, I looked closely at some packaged foods I would never buy. In addition to high fructose, Lucky Charms also contained the food coloring agent Tartrazine.

Tartrazine as a food additive has been proven to cause many different side effects and allergic responses, including migraines, asthma attacks and eczema. In some American products, they use other coloring agents that sound even worse. Be wary of additives such as Yellow 5 and 6, Blue 1 and 2, Red 2 and 3, Yellow 5 and 6 and many others. Look up what these ingredients can do to your health. It’s frightening.

In my Heinz Sweet Pickle Relish and Diet Coke, there is sodium Benzoate,  which may be responsible for hyperactivity in children. And if combined with vitamin C, it can be converted into a carcinogen called Benzene. So don’t chase down your orange with a Diet Coke. Even my Island Farms sour cream contained an unfriendly additive called Carrageenan, a thickener made out of red seaweed. Some research indicates this additive negatively impacts digestive health and may be associated with intestinal ulcers and growths. Foods labeled as healthy alternatives can be very deceiving. Take my healthy Turkey bacon for instance. It’s not so healthy! It contains Sodium nitrate, which is used a lot in processed meats. Studies show this can increase your risk of heart disease.

As author Michael Pollan says in his book, In Defense of Food, “as a general rule it’s a whole lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a raw potato or a carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over in Cereal the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming their newfound ‘whole-grain goodness’ to the rafters.”

So, what should we do with all this information? Well, it’s a great endorsement for changing your diet to one of fresh ingredients, especially fruits and vegetables. Consider planting a garden and growing your own produce. And think about generally buying less packaged foods. At the very least, take the time to read the ingredients list before dropping something in your grocery cart. If your mind is set on eating foods that contain unpronounceable ingredients, I suggest you try tomatoes, beans and blueberries. They contain things like lycopene (anti inflammatory) magnesium potassium and many other antioxidants that are beneficial to your health.

The post You Might Be Surprised by What’s in Your Food appeared first on Modern Farmer.

There, you could count on something yummy being cooked up seven days a week. My mother, Domenica, practically lived in her kitchen. And I honestly don’t know how she did it—being on her feet all day long, with the exception of the two hours she took off to watch her soap operas.

On any particular day she could be whipping up fresh bread, Sicilian pizza, lasagna or a simple veal Milanese. But for our everyday snacking needs, nothing compared to her biscotti. They were the perfect after-school treat to tide us over until dinner time, although they were so good we often crossed the line between tiding over and spoiling our appetite for dinner.

Her biscotti were delicious on their own or with a glass of milk. In the mornings, we would dunk the biscotti in our coffee. My mom made her version of a coffee eggnog using one beaten egg yolk and one teaspoon of sugar with hot coffee poured over it.

She made her biscotti in three different flavors depending on her mood. My personal favorite version used Anise extract, which is derived from a Mediterranean flower by the same name. The flavor and aroma of its seeds have similarities with some other spices, such as fennel or liquorice. It is widely cultivated and used to flavor food, candy, and alcoholic drinks. She also made lemon and orange flavors.

I was browsing through the book of her recipes we put together long ago as a gift for her 80th birthday and ran across her biscotti recipe. It occurred to me that it had been years since I had tasted them, mostly because my mom is gone and the thought of baking anything terrifies me. I am not certain why, given that baking is such an exact science. All you need to do is follow instructions, right? Somehow, in my experience, it’s not that simple. So, I invited my older sister, Rosemarie to come over and show me how it’s done. It ended up being surprisingly easy to make. It took less than an hour to make. And they were absolutely delicious, just like I remembered.

Ingredients:
-2.5 cups of flour
-2 tsp baking powder
-3 whole eggs (set aside the white of one egg)
-1 cup of sugar
-2/3 cups of vegetable oil (I use avocado or grape seed, but you can also use sunflower or canola)
-1/2 cup of slivered blanched almonds (or you can also used crushed almonds)
-One of the following depending which flavor you want to make:
1. 1 tsp of anise extract (you can buy this where you normally find vanilla extract in the grocery store).
2. grated rind of one lemon together with 2 tsp of lemon juice, 1 tsp of almond extract and 1 tsp of vanilla extract
3. grated rind of one orange together with 2 tsp of orange juice, one tsp of almond extract and 1 tsp of vanilla extract. When making the orange-flavored biscotti, you can cut down slightly on the sugar, because the orange juice provides considerable natural sweetness. 

Instructions:

This recipe makes approximately 30 to 34 biscotti (depending on the width and length of the dough strips and how wide you slice the biscotti).

In a bowl stir together the flour and the baking powder. In a separate large Mixmaster bowl, beat the three eggs together with the sugar until well beaten. Add the oil and beat some more. Then add one of Domenica’s three flavor essences (either anise, lemon or orange). To this mixture alternatively add the flour mixture  and the almonds until well mixed. At this point the mixture is very thick and doughy. You will need a spatula to remove the biscotti dough from the sides of the bowl and from the mixer attachments.

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Grease one large rectangular cookie sheet with shortening. It may be necessary to handle the dough with one’s hands. Before doing so, it is a good idea to lightly oil one’s hands so as to better handle and shape the dough. Spoon the dough onto the cookie sheet making two strips of dough along the length of the pan. Each strip of dough should be about 3 inches wide and 1 high. Each of the strips should be separated from the other strip of dough by about 2 inches. Slightly beat the reserved egg white and pat it onto the surface of the two dough strips. Place the pan in the middle rack of the oven. Bake about 22 minutes or until golden. (Varies from oven to oven).

At the end of the baking period, do not turn off the oven. Remove cookie sheet from the oven (but leave the oven on at 350°) and carefully slice each strip in a diagonal direction about ¾ inches in width. With a metal spatula, loosen the sliced biscotti from the cookie sheet and carefully turn each biscotto on its side. Here you will need an additional cookie sheet in order to spread out all the cut up biscotti. (You don’t need to oil the cookie sheets.) Once each biscotto is placed on its side, put both cookie sheets inside the oven and bake for an additional 5 or 6 minutes and at the end of this period, without opening the oven door, turn off the oven and leave the biscotti in the oven for an additional 15 minutes in order to get dry and crisp. After the 15 minutes, remove the cookie sheets from the oven and place on a cooling rack, allowing the biscotti to cool. 

The post Quarantine Recipes: Domenica’s Biscotti appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Australian academics Bill Mollison and David Holmgren are credited with creating the concept of permaculture in the 1970s. Mollison, an ecologist and university professor, defined permaculture as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.” Holmgren, for his part, went on to coin 12 design principles of permaculture in his book, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability. Before your eyes glaze over at the seeming complexity of all of this, let me point out that urban permaculture is really quite simple to understand and practice. 

My friend Laura Marie Neubert introduced this method to me. She’s a permaculture designer, gardener and chef, who has studied permaculture, as well as soil biology, mycology, regenerative farming and culinary anthropology. 

Neubert adopted Holmgren’s principles and adapted them for urban and suburban environments.

Urban permaculture embraces the ethos of permaculture and encourages interpretation of these same principles and ethics—using them as a guide to help us design our city lives.

Neubert was inspired by her maternal grandparents’ connection to the natural world. She would spend weekends at their ranch, filling her days with chores, such as mucking stalls where the cows and horses were kept. I was amused by the fact that to this day, the smell of manure brings her a curious kind of comfort.

Like many of us, Neubert worries about the future of our planet and hopes that the example of her garden can teach her children to honor nature and live sustainably. “I believe that in the space that lies between today and an unsustainable future, there exists [a] huge possibility to learn from a time not so long ago when the concept of charming side yard vegetable and fruit gardens, and even grand potagers enjoyed an enviable commonplace,” she says. 

After touring her garden and learning some of the many ways she mimics nature to produce beautiful looking vegetables in a sustainable way, I’m both inspired and motivated to do the same.

Stay tuned for our upcoming video series about urban permaculture tips I learned from Neubert in her garden. 

The post The Art of Urban Permaculture appeared first on Modern Farmer.

I wrote a column recently, asking “Why do French and Italian tomatoes taste so damn good?” and inadvertently kicked over a hornet’s nest. It immediately generated a lot of debate on social media about where the best tomatoes came from. Chef friends weighed in, and their opinions were, well, all over the map. Of course, I also got the usual Twitter trolls telling me Spanish or Greek tomatoes were much better. (Apparently, there are tiny tomatoes in San Sebastian, Spain that are amazing.) 

A well-known American celebrity chef chimed in to say that there are spectacular tomatoes in the US, as well as inferior ones in Italy. He did concede that a layer of volcanic ash and pomace in the Campania region of Italy gives tomatoes their flavor, an opinion that Vancouver chef and restaurateur, Umberto Menghi agreed with. Menghi said that this region gets a lot of sun and not too much water. Tomatoes are picked there when they are mature and emit a smell that practically says “pick me.” The American celebrity chef went on to say that the soil in parts of Italy and France can not be replicated and is the big reason that their tomatoes, as well as cheese and wine, taste so much better. However, he left me with one word of caution when fawning over Italian tomatoes. He pointed out that when you are eating tomatoes in Italy, you are immersed in the romantic and emotional experience of being there. Fair enough.

A great chef, Daniele Cason, who I met in Japan a couple of years ago (and who treated me to one of the best pizzas I have ever eaten) told me that although he loved datterino tomatoes from Italy, his favorite was a Japanese tomato called momotaro because it has the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity. 

I didn’t think anything could match the flavor of Italian tomatoes until two Vancouver chefs introduced me to sungold tomatoes grown in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, Canada. Iron Chef America winner Rob Feenie first told me about these tomatoes. Chef Pino Posteraro said that the best tomato for making sauce was the “juicy and fat” San Marzano from Italy, but Canadian-grown sungolds were among his favorite to eat. He shared a variety of tomatoes grown by Stoney Paradise Farm in Kelowna, BC and I was blown away. The varieties included brandywine, beefsteak, green zebra and a hybrid variety called cascadia, which I found to be the tastiest. These tomatoes were as delicious as ones I had tasted in Italy. Posteraro told me that the owner of the farm brought Italian tomato seeds here 20 years ago and decided that the arid climate and soil in the Okanagan Valley would be ideal to grow great tomatoes. The seeds were original heirlooms that had never changed their genetic structure.

None of this will likely end the great tomato debate, but perhaps we are slowly inching towards the truth. Let me know your opinion in the comments below or get in touch on Twitter. 

The post The Great Tomato Debate appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The combination of tomatoes and olive oil is my favorite breakfast—just sliced tomato on toast with a pinch of salt and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. It’s what I ate every single morning on a recent two-week trip to France and Italy. 

I would do the same more often at home in North America, but it’s not the same experience. Tomatoes here just don’t have nearly the same flavor as their European counterparts. Ask anyone that has tried European tomatoes and you will find a very consistent response: They are heaven. And once you have tasted European tomatoes, it’s hard to go back.

Many years ago, I tried to recreate the flavor of Italian vegetables by buying Italian seeds and planting them at my farm near Vancouver. Most of the vegetables tasted superior to local varieties and were a hit at our local farmers market. But much to my disappointment, the tomatoes, although good, still didn’t stack up when compared in flavor to what I remembered tasting in Italy. 

I thought it might come down to different soil, water and sun. I was briefly tempted to ship containers of Tuscan soil to Vancouver but was reminded that it would be somewhat illegal. But as I researched further, I learned that perhaps the larger issue simply was preference. Europeans insist on taste first and foremost, whereas North American growers have succumbed to market pressure for bigger, perfectly shaped fruit. Harry Klee, a horticulture professor at the University of Florida, told Julia Belluz, of Vox, that industrial tomatoes “have been bred for yield, production, disease resistance. The growers are not paid for flavor — they are paid for yield. So the breeders have given them this stuff that produces a lot of fruit but that doesn’t have any flavor.”

On my recent trip, I met a French chef named Benjamin, who confirmed Klee’s conclusion. He took me shopping at a local farmers market, where I saw the difference. The tomatoes had erratic shapes and many had small black blemishes—imperfections I easily forgave the moment I tasted them. 

In North America, we want tomatoes all year, and not just during local growing seasons. As such, tomatoes are grown far away and shipped before they fully ripen. They lack the sugar and water content of fully ripened tomatoes. Additionally, our consumers have been conditioned to demand aesthetic perfection, perfectly shaped fruit and vegetables, without blemishes, and without considering flavor. 

I asked Benjamin how he chose tomatoes when shopping. He starts by looking at their shape. He then feels them. They should not be firm, but a bit soft instead. He needs to feel the pulp which indicates water and sugar content. He then does something I never think to do: He smells the fruit. I remember my father doing the same thing when I was a boy. I asked Benjamin what he was looking for in the smell and he said he could judge the acidity and sweetness. And then of course, there’s the taste. 

As Benjamin and I talked, we tasted his selection of tomatoes. His personal favorite tomatoes for eating raw are beefsteak tomatoes, and Roma tomatoes for making sauce. For the smaller varieties, he preferred the Pigeon tomato over the cherry tomato. 

Sadly, I eventually ran out of questions and he ran out of tomatoes. I am home now enduring a two-week quarantine. Was it worth it? Si, Certo! Oui certainement! 

The post Why Do French and Italian Tomatoes Taste So Damn Good? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

My perception changed when I watched a documentary by filmmaker Louie Psihoyos called The Game Changers last December. The film makes the case that vegan diets are superior to omnivorous ones because they promote heart health, decrease inflammation, lower cancer risk, and most importantly for me, improve your physical performance. 

The film has its flaws, which are sometimes glaring. Critics have pointed out factual inaccuracies and some misleading information. Some of the experts involved in the documentary also have financial interests in vegan products (including the film’s executive producer, James Cameron, an outspoken vegan who founded plant protein company Verdient Foods). But even with all of those caveats, The Game Changers was sufficiently convincing that, as the credits were rolling, I made a decision to try it out for six months. 

In the documentary, a parade of athletes claim that a plant-based diet was responsible for superior performance. This did it for me, as I am very active. I train in the gym almost every day and love biking, hiking and running. I wanted to see if I would notice any positive or negative change in strength or endurance.

I prepared myself mentally for what I thought would be a torturous and dull half year of grilled vegetables, soups and too many pasta dishes. Friends started sending me vegan cookbooks, recipes and restaurants to try that opened the door to a whole new world for me. As someone who loves to cook, trying these new recipes was tremendous fun, and some of them are now among my favorites. The variety seems endless.

My conversion also stirred a lot of debate among friends. On the one hand, I was getting an abundance of praise from other vegans. I was cheered on to the “right side” with enthusiasm that bordered on the evangelical. There is definitely a very militant side to the vegan world. Conversely, some friends were more circumspect, only asking me to clarify exactly how long this fad was going to continue.

The six months just ended, and to sum up my experience, I would say that my strength and energy levels were not adversely impacted. My digestive system definitely felt better. I confess that I did hedge my bets and started taking vitamin supplements during the same period. I lost approximately five to seven pounds in the process. Cooking at home became a fun adventure but going out for dinner or dining at friends’ homes posed occasional challenges. Most people try to accommodate, but you inevitably end up with a plate of grilled vegetables. And being a pacifist by nature, I felt better about myself, given that I was no longer one of the murderous links in the animal food chain and that my new behavior was also better for the environment.

I am a believer in tweaking your diet now and then to see if the changes make you feel better. I cut out dairy a few years ago and it made the world of difference in my digestion. I had also largely eradicated red meat from my diet. 

Before my vegan experiment, I was eating the Mediterranean diet, which is largely vegan except for fish. As my six months came to an end, I decided to go back to including fish. Not so much because I missed it, but because it’s more convenient when not home cooking. I hope my new vegan friends will find it in their hearts to forgive me.

Here are two of my favorite vegan recipes from my six months.

The following recipes are from Vedge: 100 Plates Large and Small That Redefine Vegetable Cooking, © Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby, 2013. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, The Experiment. 

Summer Corn with Green Chile Cream

I get greedy and impatient with corn. Who can wait for Jersey corn? The Florida corn starts in late winter, the Georgia corn in April, and my favorite, Carolina corn, comes in May. If you have access to an outdoor grill, please try the “On the Cob” method for a nice outdoor barbecue. Looking for an extra kick? Substitute jalapeños for the poblanos. Or, for an irresistible summer soup, served hot or cold, puree it all with 4 cups of Vegetable Stock.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Serves 4 to 6

4 ears corn
½ cup finely chopped seeded poblano peppers
¼ cup finely chopped onions
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons vegan sour cream
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

Oven Method

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Shave the corn kernels off the cobs into a large bowl and toss with the poblanos, onions, canola oil, salt, and pepper. Transfer the mixture to a sheet pan and bake until the top of the mixture starts to char, about 15 minutes.
3. Return the mixture to the bowl. Fold in the vegan sour cream, cilantro, and 2 tablespoons water, then serve.

“On the Cob” Method

1. Preheat the grill to high.
2. Brush the shucked ears of corn with 1½ teaspoons of the canola oil, then grill the ears directly on the grill racks until lightly charred on all sides, 4 to 8 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1½ teaspoons canola oil in a large sauté pan over high. When it starts to ripple, add the poblanos, onions, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring, until brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the vegan sour cream and 2 tablespoons water and cook for an additional 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the cilantro.
4. Serve the ears of grilled corn drizzled with the green chile cream.

Hearts of Palm Cakes on Curried Lentils

Hearts of palm are unsung heros in the vegetable world. Vedge’s hearts of palm hail from the Wailea Agricultural Group on the big island of Hawaii. Sustainably farmed and flown to us each week, fresh hearts of palm have a flavor and texture that can’t be beat. Their crunchy, clean-tasting white flesh is reminiscent of a fresh artichoke heart. If you don’t have a small tropical farm filling your produce orders on a weekly basis, canned or jarred hearts of palm make for a very good runner-up.

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes
Serves 4

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons minced green bell peppers
• 2 tablespoons minced scallions, white and light green parts only
• One 16-ounce can hearts of palm, drained, cut into 2-inch chunks
• 4 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup minced onions
• 4 cups Vegetable Stock 
• 1 cup dried yellow or red lentils, picked through and rinsed
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• ½ cup vegan mayo

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large sauté pan over high heat. Add the bell peppers and scallions and cook, stirring, until brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the hearts of palm chunks, 2 teaspoons of the curry powder, and ½ teaspoon of the salt. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning, then transfer the mixture to a large bowl and let cool. Pulse the mixture in a food processor to achieve a coarse, shredded consistency. Set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
3. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large saucepan over high heat. When the oil begins to ripple, add the onions and cook, stirring, until brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons curry powder and cook for an additional 2 to 3 minutes. Add the stock and lentils. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until the lentils are tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Stir in the remaining ½ teaspoon salt and the cilantro. Remove from the heat and cover to keep warm.
4. Fold the vegan mayo into the cooled hearts of palm mixture. Form the mixture into four balls. Transfer the balls to a sheet pan, flatten them into round cakes about 2 inches thick, and bake until the edges turn brown, 6 to 8 minutes.
5. To serve, spoon the lentils onto four plates and place one hearts of palm cake on top of each portion.

The post My Vegan Experiment appeared first on Modern Farmer.

To provide you with some kitchen inspiration, Modern Farmer is asking top chefs what they’ve been cooking while staying isolated. This week, our publisher, Frank Giustra, weighs in with a spicy peanut butter West African chicken curry.

If I were on a desert island and offered only one bag of groceries, it would include canned tomatoes, pasta, olive oil and a couple of jars of peanut butter (no bread needed). 

Peanut butter is a kid-favorite that seems to follow most of us into adulthood. It’s not only tasty, but nutritious, and like many health-conscious people these days, I eventually transitioned from the sugary brands, to the more natural selections. While I love the stuff, I must admit that I paused for a moment when the team at Acceso—an organization I founded to find entrepreneurial solutions to global poverty—suggested we produce a spicy peanut butter in Haiti. 

Since 2014, Acceso has been working to lift thousands of Haitian farmers out of poverty by building the largest formal network of smallholder farmers in Haiti, and becoming the largest supplier of local peanuts on the island. To build on this success, the team wanted to sell a spicy peanut butter using scotch bonnet peppers and peanuts grown by these Haitian farmers to consumers in the US. After a few years of perfecting a recipe, conducting taste tests in Haiti and New York, and ideating around a name and design, Lavi Spicy Peanut Butter was born. “Lavi” means “life” in Haitian Creole and Acceso’s intent with this name was to capture the vibrant, life-loving culture of Haiti in a new and exciting product. We introduced Lavi in the US at the end of 2019. 

Lavi is now generating a new source of income for these farmers, and on top of that, for each jar purchased, a peanut-based nutritious snack is provided to a child in Haiti through Acceso Haiti’s school meals program.

Spicy peanut butter, or mamba, is a common condiment in Haiti that’s sold on street corners in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. It’s often savoury and hot, unlike the sweet peanut butters we tend to consume in the US. As I’ve learned more about mamba, I’ve tried some traditional Haitian and West African recipes that include this unique ingredient. Recently, I tried a recipe for Chicken Mafé, a West African dish that’s culturally close to Haitian cooking, which I found in NYT Cooking. 

I followed the recipe, but, as I was out in the countryside, I didn’t have access to cabbage, carrots and tomato paste on that particular day. I did the best I could by thickening canned tomatoes and adding green beans. Meanwhile, my girlfriend decided to create a second dish, which was more of a chicken curry style recipe, also using spicy peanut butter. 

The resulting dishes were both very tasty, and we had them again for leftovers the following night. My girlfriend’s dish had more of a peanut butter taste and was spicier than mine, although we used equal amounts of peanut butter. At first, I thought this was due to the additional spices she had used, but was later told by a chef friend of ours that I had added too many potatoes. Apparently, potatoes absorb a lot of the heat from spices. Our friend also suggested we add lime juice (cherry tomatoes work as well) for acidity which helps balance and enhance the flavors. We added lime juice on the leftovers and I must admit, it made a big difference. 

West African chicken curry 

Ingredients:
4 chicken thighs
1 onion
4 large garlic cloves
3 inches ginger
1 red pepper
2 sweet potatoes
1 Yukon gold potato
1 pack green string beans
5 chopped runner beans
Paprika*
Cumin*
Turmeric*
Salt*
Pepper*
Fish sauce
1 tin chopped tomatoes
½ pint Chicken stock
½ jar of spicy peanut butter
1 lime
½ cup light coconut milk
1 large handful of chopped fresh coriander
*we suggest that you use spices in quantities to your preference as the measurements used in this recipe were eyeballed 

Instructions:
Chop the garlic cloves into small pieces. Mix half of them with the oil, honey, lime, salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin and paprika. Add these to a zip lock bag and massage the chicken in until covered completely. Leave this to marinate for a minimum of one hour, and preferably overnight if possible.

Chop the potatoes into cubes and the other vegetables roughly into a similar size.

Add them to a pan, along with the onions, ginger, and the rest of the garlic. Fry for 30 seconds to release the aroma in a light oil, and then add chopped tomatoes, the chicken stock, fish sauce, peanut butter and coconut milk. Once simmering, add the ready marinated chicken thighs and the veg.

Slow cook this for 45 minutes to an hour on high.

Once the chicken is cooked through, add roughly chopped fresh parsley and the lime juice. Season it with salt, pepper, paprika and turmeric to taste.

The post Quarantine Recipes: West African Chicken Curry appeared first on Modern Farmer.