Harvest to Table

The peak-season for winter squashes is from mid-autumn through early winter. The Blue Hubbard Squash—which is also called the New England Blue Hubbard—is a great choice for a sweet tasting winter squash to serve on a cold, late autumn evening. The flesh of the Blue Hubbard is deep orange. It is dense and starchy and has [...]

Golden raisins are moister and plumper than dark raisins. They make for delicious eating out of hand or can be added to a rice pudding or as an ice cream or pancake topping. The Golden raisin is almost always a Thompson seedless grape that has been treated with sulfur dioxide and then artificially dried with [...]

Broccoli raab and rapini are not synonymous, but when it comes to recipes and marketing they practically are. Broccoli raab [rob] has long, thin rich-green stems (6-9 inches/18-23 cm long) topped with scattered clusters of broccoli-like florets. The flavor is nutty and both pungent and zesty. Rapini [rah-PEE-nee] is similar to broccoli raab but with [...]

The Nantes carrot was first described in a nineteenth century French vegetable seed catalog in this way: “Root almost perfectly cylindrical…skin very smooth…flesh of the root entirely red, very sweet and mild in flavor….” The Nantes carrot takes its name from the city on the Atlantic coast of France where the surrounding countryside is ideal [...]

A yam and a sweet potato are not the same vegetable, but they can be substituted for one another in most recipes. The yam has more natural sugar and is therefore sweeter than the sweet potato and its flesh is moister than the sweet potato. Yams–depending upon variety—can have a flesh that is white, yellow, [...]

After the first frost of the year, the starch in the parsnip converts to sugar and that is when parsnip eating gets good. The parsnip has a pleasantly sweet taste that combined with brown sugar, maple syrup, cream, apples or spices such as nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon or allspice, for instance, make it all the more [...]

The Meyer lemon is a cross between a lemon and a tangerine. Its sweet taste—lemon with a hint of its parent tangerine–has made it a favorite of cooks and gourmets. In fact, some chefs call the Meyer “the gourmet lemon.” Meyers are more round and have a softer, more smooth rind than the bigger, commercial [...]

Many French kings went by the name Louis. The name means famous warrior. The moniker worked for many of the kings of France, but by the time the name came down to Louis XV, the French had just about had it with the idea of an absolute monarchy. While Louis XV did little to popularize [...]

Honeydew, casaba and Cavaillon melons are classed as winter melons because they ripen more slowly than other melons and are usually not ready until late fall. After harvest, they even continue to ripen in storage. Choose. Honeydews should have a smooth, evenly yellow rind that is slightly green at the stem end. Look for honeydews [...]

The fall harvest continues with the first persimmons and pomegranates coming to market now. Persimmons have a tangy-sweet taste and creamy texture. The most popular is the Hachiya, which is also called Japanese persimmon. There is a native American persimmon which originates in Virginia. It is smaller than the Japanese persimmon and much more flavorful. [...]