They Came from the Ground!

Does anyone actually know what these vegetables are?

by Tami Fertig

When it comes to vegetables, most of us stick with what we know. Peas, carrots, celery. We've eaten these things a billion times, safe in the knowledge that they won't hurt us or upset our stomachs. But who can say the same for burdock? Or rutabaga? Or Swiss chard? What the heck is Swiss chard? Given the choice between a green bean and an unidentifiable vegetable with hairs growing from it, who among us — besides daredevil foodies — would opt for the latter?

TEST TUBERS: Highland Orchards wants you to try this purple potato, Jerusalem artichoke and horseradish root (foreground). Michael T. Regan

Ruth Linton, a farmer at Wilmington, Del.'s Highland Orchards, understands all of this, so when she and her family drive up to Philly for farmers markets (Fitler Square, Aviator Park, Schuylkill River Park), she brings along a few veggies to broaden our horizons — some variations on old standbys, others you might know but not, y'know, know (especially when they wind up in your weekly farm share box unlabeled).

Take the Jerusalem artichoke. It could not make things any harder on novices. If its name doesn't fool you (it's neither an artichoke nor from Jerusalem, but was first cultivated by Indians in Canada as early as the 16th century), then surely its appearance will. On the outside, it bares a striking resemblance to ginger root, what with its tan skin and bulbous protrusions — but that's where the similarities end. Where a coin of ginger is ridiculously pungent, Jerusalem artichoke tastes sweet and mellow.

Though rich in iron, it also contains the fiber inulin, which causes gastric distress in some people. In part because of this, the 'choke has long suffered a bad reputation — the early-17th-century French even believed eating its gnarled flesh could cause leprosy. During the last half-century, however, small farms have been bringing the little tuber back.

"A lot of people use them as a substitute for potatoes because the sugar doesn't convert to starch," says Linton. "It's a low-glycemic-index crop, so people who are diabetic can eat them."

Linton sells them in li'l chunks, which need only be scrubbed — no peeling required. After that, anything goes. "Roast them, mash them, bake them, steam them, grate them into salads."

Do not, however, do the same for the horseradish root. This thing may seem harmless enough — it looks sorta like a dirty dog bone and smells like, well, dirt — but shredding it will reveal its true nature: hot, hot, hot. More powerful than the store-bought stuff dabbed on matzoh at Passover seders, this horseradish unleashes crippling, nose-hair-tinging fumes when cut open.

It's not surprising, then, that few people actually prepare horseradish themselves. For those brave enough to try, Linton suggests peeling and throwing the root into a food processor, adding a teeny bit of vinegar and, above all, resisting a sniff.

"It will drain your sinuses and make you cry," she warns. "The longer it sits, the milder the flavor becomes," so it should eventually taste more like its attractive bottled cousin.

Not nearly as potent but just as intriguing is the purple potato (see also: blue potato, black potato), which could easily be mistaken for a rock. "Some people are a little thrown by them," laughs Linton. She likes to sneak a few into bags with more recognizable buttery Yukon gold and red-skinned spuds.

Unlike similarly hued foods, such as purple green beans, which bleed their colors and turn your cooking water a putrid green ("they're more fun when they're raw," says Linton), purple potatoes retain both their black skin and blue flesh when boiled. Sweeter and softer than most potatoes, they're excellent for mashing.

"You're supposed to eat five different colors a day," says Linton, "each one providing you with different nutrients." Turns out, you can get your daily dose of antioxidants not just from blueberries, but from purple potatoes, too.

See, veggies we normally think of as being particular colors are actually just the most readily available; their rarer heirloom varieties offer different nutrients and come in colors spanning the rainbow — their seeds passed from farmer to farmer, from country to country.

The equally antioxidant-packed purple carrot, for instance, which Linton sells in small bunches with yellow carrots, was brought over from Europe only within the last decade, but dates back to at least 2000 B.C. — the oldest known type of carrot in the world, in fact — when Egyptians are believed to have eaten them (at least, according to temple drawings, which show large, purple, carrotlike objects). Orange carrots only started popping up in 16th-century Holland, thanks to Dutch farmers who bred them to honor their royal family, the House of Orange.

The purple carrot fell out of use until recently, when supermarkets in England tried (and failed) to market it as a "fun" vegetable. It then made its way over here; Linton's been growing it for the past four years. The purple carrot is sweeter than the orange one, she says, even though it's still orange on the inside (which makes for a neat band of color).

The winner of the beauty contest, however, has to be our cover model, Swiss chard. OK, it's not that uncommon a vegetable — pretty much every farmers market carries the stuff — so why don't more people eat it? Linton, for one, doesn't consider it unusual — her family has been growing chard since the 1890s, when her great-grandfather, the grandson of German immigrants, introduced it to the Delaware area.

Basically, it's a hugely nutritious, iron-rich leafy green, sweeter than kale and extremely perishable. Linton recommends sauteing it or simply chopping it in salad. She brings red-stemmed chard during winter, reserving rainbow chard — whose stalks are brilliant pink, yellow and red — for spring and summer. "It's not as hearty as the red-stemmed," she says, "but it makes a pretty plate."

(tami.fertig@citypaper.net)

You can find these vegetables at Highland Orchards' farmers markets depending on the season and Mother Nature. Check out more details.