{"id":12116,"date":"2008-10-06T16:10:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T16:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/cooking_up_the_curious_the_oddly_shaped_the_colorful_and_the_regular\/"},"modified":"2015-10-29T11:35:44","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T16:35:44","slug":"cooking_up_the_curious_the_oddly_shaped_the_colorful_and_the_regular","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/cooking_up_the_curious_the_oddly_shaped_the_colorful_and_the_regular\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking Up The Curious, The Oddly Shaped, The Colorful and The Regular"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nPhoto by Nick Koon<\/span><\/div>\n

We have a wonderful tradition at Rosh Hashanah of eating new fruits of the season. What did you choose? Pomegranate? Apple? And what will be suspended from the roof of your sukkah? Same old, same old?<\/p>\n

Sukkot or “Feast of Ingathering” was agricultural in origin. Why not celebrate this thanksgiving of the fruit harvest with a truly rich bounty of all those curious, oddly shaped, colorful varieties you\u2019ve never yet purchased because they\u2019re just so strange.<\/p>\n

And with more and more exotic varieties offered at Farmers Markets and even supermarkets, I\u2019m thinking, eating new fruits should be a weekly habit, not just an annual tradition. But what do you do with them if you don\u2019t even know what they are?<\/p>\n

You\u2019re shopping for produce, and you spot this spiny magenta…what? You\u2019re curious, but what on earth is it? For a moment your hand hovers as you gauge your own adventurous spirit. But do you buy it soft or firm? peel it? cook it? eat it raw? So instead you buy plums. Again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe appearance of dragon fruit is downright surreal,\u201d writes Cathy Thomas, food editor of The Orange County Register and award-winning author of \u201cMelissa\u2019s Great Book of Produce: Everything you need to know about fresh fruits and vegetables\u201d (Wiley), a gloriously photographed, comprehensive guide down the produce aisles. With Thomas at the helm, each fruit, from Asian pear to yuzu, and each vegetable, from artichoke to yu choy sum, begs to be discovered, its perfume inhaled and, yes, tasted.<\/p>\n

Dragon fruit \u201chas eye-popping magenta skin, dotted with bright lime-green spines\u201d and \u201ctastes like a marriage between kiwi and pineapple,\u201d she promises. Indeed it does, as I discovered at a recent book signing and reception. Robert Schueller, marketing guru for Melissa\u2019s World Variety Produce, Inc., the largest distributor of specialty produce and foods in the U.S., selected a dragon fruit from the exotic fruit buffet \u2013 a riot of color like an artist\u2019s palette \u2013 and cut into it to reveal its purplish-pink flesh.<\/p>\n

So what do you do with it? Dice the flesh, says Thomas, and combine it with diced pineapple or mango, toss with mint or liqueur and serve in the spiny shells. Or cut into wedges and splash with fresh lime. Use dragon fruit pur\u00e9e in cakes or quick breads or fold into sweetened whipped cream.<\/p>\n

Thomas and Melissa\u2019s have teamed up to take the guesswork out of buying, storing, preparing, using and serving 120 fruits and vegetables. Brilliant photos from the Register\u2019s Nick Koon and 100 mouth-watering recipes, plus a glossary of gizmos, make \u201cMelissa\u2019s Great Book of Produce\u201d a valuable resource for the home cook or seasoned professional.<\/p>\n

But the icing on the cake (or, I should say, the crown on the pomegranate) is the prose. Unlike other produce guide writers one consults for mere information, Thomas, with her uncanny ability to capture sound, smell and taste, invites you on a shopping adventure.<\/p>\n

Take figs: \u201cFragile fig skin surrenders easily to reveal soft-textured flesh filled with a multitude of tiny seeds. A bite produces tiny seed-popping sounds, flesh saturated with honey flavor, and a moist flower-petal aroma.\u201d Go ahead. Pass up those luscious black missions. I dare ya\u2019.<\/p>\n

Each fruit and vegetable fairly leaps off the page. \u201cI want people to be able to smell each one and taste it,\u201d she told me. \u201cShould it give a little when you press your thumb or snap when you break it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Common varieties combine with the exotic, eliminating the intimidation factor. \u201cEverybody knows common celery,\u201d said Thomas, \u201cbut what about Chinese celery? The leaves and stalk are limp. They\u2019re supposed to be. They\u2019re so aromatic and delicious. I love to see people use them in stir-fries and soup.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI make it a point to try something different every time I shop,\u201d noted Nancy Eisman, Melissa\u2019s special projects director. Good idea!
\nSo as fall days turn crisp and the soup kettle beckons, why not try the sunflower choke, also called Jerusalem artichoke or sunchoke. (Alas, this vegetable has nothing to do with Jerusalem. The name derives from the Italian word for sunflower, girasole<\/i>.) With its knobby appearance, you might mistake it for ginger, but its nutty flavor tells you, that is where the similarity ends. You can also cut them into sticks to serve with dip or roast, steam or boil them.<\/p>\n

Kumquats look like tiny oranges, and the entire fruit is edible. You can poach, saut\u00e9, bake or boil them. Candy them for marmalade or relish using simple syrup. Here they team up with squash as an accompaniment to salmon, steamed in individual foil packets.<\/p>\n

There are over 25 varieties of Asian pears. You can eat them raw or slice them into salads or slaws; dip them in warm caramel or chocolate fondue; or bake them in pies, crisps and cakes. Thomas suggests topping these turnovers with ice cream or a dollop of cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche or sweetened plain yogurt. A scrumptious ending to this unique fall menu.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

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Judy Bart Kancigor<\/b> is the author of \u201cCooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family\u201d and can be found on the web at www.cookingjewish.com<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Nick Koon We have a wonderful tradition at Rosh Hashanah of eating new fruits of the season. What did you choose? Pomegranate? Apple? And what will be suspended from the roof of your sukkah? Same old, same old? Sukkot or “Feast of Ingathering” was agricultural in origin. Why not celebrate this thanksgiving of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":44066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,133,135],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-rosh-hashanah","category-sukkot"],"yoast_head":"\nCooking Up The Curious, The Oddly Shaped, The Colorful<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Looking for a new fruit for this Rosh Hashanah, try dragon fruit, figs, kumquats, or Asian pears. 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