"Vegetables of Interest"

Red Pontiac Potatoes

Red Pontiac Potatoes

(Solanum tuberosum)

It’s the Fourth of July and time to dig potatoes.  Actually, its past time.   I planted my short row of Red Pontiacs around the first of April.  The variety matures about 80 days from planting which means I’m about ten days late.  Lateness is something you get used to when farming.

The time it takes for a potato to mature isn’t something we think about as consumers but it was a bottleneck as potatoes traveled from their origin in South America to Europe.   Its apparent that many selections were made as the potato moved up from the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands into Northern Europe.  The short growing seasons in the North required varieties with more rapid growth.  Luckily, potatoes have a relatively high rate of spontaneous mutations affecting color, skin type, shape and maturation times.  Careful observation combined with the ability to reproduce “true-to-type” offspring via the use of tubers made for the rapid establishment of many potato varieties.  English plantsmen were particularly fastidious about potato maturation times classifying the spread of differing types as “first earlies”,  “second earlies”, “mains” and “late mains.”

Potato varieties have also been developed by cross pollination.  The original or “regular” Pontiac potato was developed in the late 1930s as a cross between an old English potato named “Triumph” and a Maine potato called  “Katahdin.”  I’ve never seen the regular Pontiac but it is described as having white flesh as did its parents but with a buffed reddish skin similar to Triumph.  The “Red Pontiac” selection with its bright red skin came out as a mutation found in Southern field tests in the early 1940s.

I like several things about the Red Pontiac potato aside from its interesting pedigree.  In particular, I like its imperfections.  If grown to maturity the tubers vary in size and shape.  They are mostly round but oblong ones show up too.  The surface of the spud is dotted with shallow eyes and subtle nobs that don’t quite become noses.  In short, these potatoes look like they have character in comparison to the perfectly shaped, winkle-free Burbank bakers.

Our modern day obsession with vegetable appearances is sad and uninformed but it isn’t new.  In the 16th century there arose a theory called the “Doctrine of Signatures” that prescribed plant materials as ‘herbals’.  The Doctrine held that plants resembling a human malady in some respect would be helpful in its cure.  For example, red beet juice could help cure blood ailments.  Walnuts were good for scalp wounds and so forth.  In the case of potatoes Doctrine writings concluded that the numerous ‘growths’ on the surface of many potatoes suggested a sinister connection to leprosy and they strongly advised against its consumption. 

For those among you who have the courage to ignore 16th century mystical thinking, the Red Pontiac potato will reward you.  Its thin skin has a beautiful ‘crunch’ when braised.  And the waxy flesh makes a great mash.  The flavor?  “Happiness increased” is how John Foster described potatoes in 1664.  True then.  True now.

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2009

Rio Oso Gem Peach

Rio Oso Gem Peach

(Prunus persica)

There is an old-as-dirt punch line that farmers use when confronted with the question of “What’s your favorite vegetable or crop?”  The farmer must use the correct timing for best effect (long pause, thoughtful furrowing of the brow) but the classic deadpan reply is “The one I’m harvesting now.”  So it is that in early September that my favorite eating peach is the Rio Oso Gem. 

Rio Oso Gem was developed in the 1920’s as a large, late-harvest, all-purpose peach.  It is named in honor of the very small town of Rio Oso, California in the Sierra foothills.  Today this peach has little presence in the commercial market.  The trees are small which is an advantage to a backyard grower but its overall yield is lower than that of current cultivars.  And it has a tendency for fruit drop.  Finally, some say that the flesh of a Rio Oso is coarser than that of more popular peaches.  There is some truth to that but its nothing that a dab of ice cream won’t fix.

The Rio Oso Gem peach is listed on the Slow Food Ark of Taste and, as advertised, its fruit ripen at the tail end of peach season here in California.

My crop of Rio Oso Gem peaches is from a single five-year-old tree, grown organically in the Valley of the Moon.

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Size Matters

Size Matters

(Allium cepa)



In nearly every respect Medwyn Williams (aka "Medwyn of Anglesey") seems like a normal fellow.  He is a Welshman of an age somewhere North of fifty.  He is retired from a long career in government.   His smooth, youthful face expresses warmth and intelligence. In photographs he appears in a fine-looking suit draped over a generous frame.   Medwyn Williams writes a good deal and his texts read like they belong to the man in the photographs.  His material is handled with crisp clarity and helpfulness.  He shuns illustrations preferring the ruler as he offers tips and encouragement to his readers.  And doubtless he has a great number of readers in places high and low.  Medwyn Williams is into size.

The English gardener is many things.  He is hard working, frugal, observant, patient, and communicative to the point of being chatty. But he is also something else:  Competitive.  The English are rather keen on something they call "competitive gardening"  a hobby whose spirit is captured in the brief and inelegant phrase, "Mine is bigger than yours."  I don't mean to suggest that the English gardener's sizable interest in size is entirely a matter of ruler or scale. English vegetable competitions also emphasize an unblemished specimen of uniform and 'classic proportions'.   But it is clear from those who make into the winner's circle using specialized seeds and underground tips that this is gardening in the "Big League.'

Americans gardeners, too, reach for super-sized produce.  A careful reading of a Gurney's or Burpee's seed catalog will discover pulse-quickening descriptions that include words like "huge," "enormous" and "fist-sized."  But unlike English enthusiasts we haven't marshaled entire seed lines devoted to the exhibition market nor do we have the expertise to boast of a 15# Kelsae onion with a girth of 33 inches.

Until recently  I've held a smug and self-serving opinion about competitive gardening.  I would quote Swift's line in Gulliver's Travels that "….whosoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind…"  and note that it applied to "two ears or blades" rather than an a double-sized ear or blade.  But my 2007 crop of Walla Walla onions was so diminutive that I found myself delivering them in brown paper wrappers.  It was time to study Medwyn's  tips on growing onions.

Attached is a photo of my 2008 Walla Walla onion crop.  They are not 15 pounds nor do they have 33 inch waistlines.  They do, however, catch one's breath.  And my cipollini which share space on the onion drying table seem embarrassed.  Medwyn is the Man!

These onions were organically grown in my garden in the Valley of the Moon, Sonoma County.

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Sun Crest Peaches

Sun Crest Peaches   

(Prunis persica)

There has always been something a bit too sensuous about a peach to keep its admirers on the straight and narrow.  Sooner or later their relationship to a peach becomes physical and their admiring smiles tighten into a leer.  Even the splendid and lyrical Epitaph for a Peach by David Masamoto gets slightly creepy as he describes eating a Sun Crest peach: “Sun Crest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches. When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water ...your mouth waters in anticipation. You lean over the sink to make sure you don't drip on yourself. Then you sink your teeth into the flesh, and the juice trickles down your cheeks and dangles on your chin.”

I can speculate at some length about why peaches, in particular, have this effect.  I can point out its curvaceous outline; its lip-like groove; its terry-cloth fuzzy robe and its enchanting perfume as charms.  But I think that the Siren-like appeal of a ripe peach is its flesh.  Unlike other fruits peaches yield to the most tender of bites but a knife can make crisp-looking slices.  And once in the mouth a ripe peach explodes into a sweet elixir while retaining just enough texture that it’s nobody’s snow cone.  That peachy quality of yielding, juice-filled flesh is called “melting flesh” by botanists and while the science explaining this characteristic isn’t sensual it is sexy.

Peaches are a climacteric fruit, which means that the ripening process is triggered and driven by a plant hormone called ethylene.  Peaches make this hormone in the fruits themselves at a point in their development.  Ethylene is a gas and it permeates the peach tissues triggering a larger number of events that are collectively observed as the ripening process.  For example, ethylene speeds the destruction of green-colored chlorophyll in peach skin allowing the yellow-colored carotenoid pigments to shine  (if it’s a yellow peach).  Ethylene also pushes along the production of sugars and the elimination of acids which both contribute to the sensory perception of “sweetness.”  Ethylene plays a role, too, in softening the fruit’s flesh through an enzyme reaction that breaks down the cell wall structure in the fruit.  As this enzyme reaction gains speed the peach’s flesh softens or “melts” suffusing the flesh with aromatic juices. 

Recently plant geneticists have identified the peach gene responsible for the melting flesh characteristic and have given it the dubious abbreviation, “MF.”  It turns out that some peach varieties have an absent or silent MF gene and thus remain firm despite being ripe.  And there are probably variants of the MF gene to explain why some peaches “melt” more than others.  To my knowledge the Sun Crest MF gene has not been sequenced but when scientists do I suggest that they lean over a sink.

These Sun Crest peaches were organically grown in my garden in the Valley of the Moon, Sonoma County.

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Elberta Peaches

Elberta Peaches

 

(Prunis persica)

The Elberta peach is a late-season, free-stone variety developed by Samuel Rumph in the 1870s. Rumph was an amateur botanist and nurseryman who triumphed in his creation of a tree that was hardy, highly productive and offered large, lushly sweet peaches. His contributions to the peach world did not end there. He was also an inventor of a number of peach-related devices and packages. He designed the first mortise jointed wood boxes that became the iconic "peach crate" and he developed the first systems of refrigeration for peaches traveling by railcar. Both accomplishments fueled the fresh peach market in the late 1880s and enabled Southern farmers to have access to Northern markets, particularly New York. Within his lifetime the Elberta peach population reached six million trees, sealing the fate of the "Peach State." Always a thoughtful and kind man Rumph gave away his inventions and graciously named his peach "Elberta" in honor of his wife who shares a middle name with this lovely peach.

 

These peaches were organically grown in my garden in the Valley of the Moon.

 

C Lindquist

Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Goccia d'Oro Peppers

Goccia d'Oro Peppers

(Capsicum annuum)

If you've ever wondered why Italians dote on heirloom frying peppers and give expressions of polite pity to an American garden filled with big, blocky bell peppers here is a clue:

Goccia d'Oro (Drop of Gold)  is an open pollinated heirloom frying pepper that despite its size has delicate, thin walls that melt into a sweet mouthful.  Its skin is also thin so you needn't peel them.  Cut-and-fry or simply apply a light coating of oil and grill.  Italian frying peppers have a delicate taste that thick-walled American Bells lack.

Goccia d'Oro  is a very productive plant which yeilds early peppers best picked as they turn yellow.  In my garden they've required staking to prevent them from toppling over with an abundance of big peppers.  That's the sort of extra work that a gardener finds appealing.

These Goccia d'Oro were organically grown in my garden in the Valley of the Moon.

C Lindquist

Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Masai Snap Beans

Masai Snap Beans

(Phaseolus vulgaris v. Masai)

There are few more sacred beliefs amongst seed collectors than the notion that heirloom vegetables are manifestly superior to ‘modern vegetables.’  There is, of course, ample evidence to support that proposition and it is as close as the nearest grocery store.  Still, the assumed superiority of plant varieties selected fifty years ago vs. those from 20 or 2 years ago seems arbitrary without closer examination.  And while I consider myself an “heirloom man” by nature I’m also on board with Mark Twain when he quipped that “All generalizations are false, including this one.”

For some years I’ve grown haricot vert (aka ‘French/filet) beans with an open mind towards the ‘moderns.’  My wayward journey away from heirlooms can be traced back to Triumph de Farcy, an older (heirloom?) French bean that is widely recommend by French growers and chefs.  In my garden, however, Farcy was more fussy than fine.  The work necessary to find only the slender & tender pods required the timing of a stopwatch and the working conditions of a slave.  Since that experience I’ve been sure to include a new modern hericot vert bean in my garden plan each season.  Happily, the French are always up to something bean-wise and this year’s bean throw down featured the modern “Masai” snap bean.

I am unable to find any meaningful information about the background of the Masai bean other than it comes from an agribusiness giant which doesn’t reveal much about how they create new plant varieties.   I can report that it readily pops out of the ground in 6-7 days with the vigor one might expect from a hybrid bean.  The foliage is adequate but not lush.  The plants are upright and appear to hold the pods well above the ground  which is a good feature to prevent the consequences of pods-on-soil.  The plants freely bloomed despite a short period of shock after a sweltering heat wave and I’m picking the first crop of pods about 2.5 weeks post bloom.  The pods are green, of course, but not glossy.  The tips are slightly curved but none are ‘hooked.’  The pods can be detached from the plant easily (low ‘PDF’ or “pod detachment force” in the parlance of bean breeders) and I’ve broken few pods despite my casual approach to picking.

The attached picture shows a small early harvest of Masai beans.  For the technophiles out there I recommend picking haricot vert beans at a diameter of about 5mm which corresponds to the bean industry’s sieve scale at the high end  of  “Sieve 1”.  Commercial bean production sorts beans by diameter and length.  The Sieve scale parses beans by diameter using a scale of 1-7 with the larger numbers corresponding to fatter beans.   Commercial growers aim for the fresh bean market with beans at Sieve 4 diameter or  about 22/64th of an inch (8 ¾ mm). 

The harvest diameter of a snap bean is a compromise between a more tender (thinner) bean vs. a greater yielding (fatter) bean.  In addition to the tender vs. tough consideration is shelf life.  Snap beans loose their ‘snap’ and become limp as they loose 5% or more their weight.  Beans picked when very thin are prone to dehydration and consequently have much shorter ‘shelf lives’.  Some commercial bean varieties attempt to skirt this issue by breeding more fiber into the pods but the consumer is dealt a cruel surprise in the form of a slender, tough bean.

As noted above I pick my beans at about 5mm in diameter which is so thin that many commercial processors would discard them as a ‘cull.’ Even more fanatical, however, are some chefs who insist on beans little bigger than a comma.  Personally I find that 5mm provides all the tenderness and yield that I desire.  Shelf life?  It’s about 10 minutes from garden-to-plate at my house.  That’s plenty of time.

These Masai beans were organically grown in my garden in the Valley of the Moon.

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2008

A Patch of Peppers

A Patch of Peppers

August 10, 208

This morning I watched a California 'wild' honey bee fly from Brazil to Peru by way of Japan.  I rushed to get my camera to record his transcontinental flight but when I returned to the garden he was over in Australia pollinating a winter squash.  It's been that way all summer here in the Valley of the Moon.  Moving 18 inches from one pepper plant to another crosses countries, continents, plant species and even centuries of plant development.  If you want armchair travel seasoned with education and beauty while waiting for delicious eating nothing can beat a patch of peppers.

My main pepper planting is modest in size.  It measures 35' X 10' and holds about 75 plants.  There are 5 different species (C. annuum, frutescens, chinense, baccatum, pubescens), 32 varieties (etc etc etc) and more to see and think about than I've had time to do either.  The education begins with the seeds.  Nearly all pepper seeds look alike:  small flat, round, tan-colored seeds that look crimped at the edges.  But one pepper variety, Rocoto, (C pubescens) has jet black seeds.  Rocoto is a very hot but very cool looking pepper!

Once established a pepper patch puts on a remarkable show of diversity in branching, leaf types and flower arrangements that long precede the abundance of different fruit.   A brief study of just a few plants opens up a treasure chest of natural nuance and ingenuity.  For example, the flower of our common sweet peppers or  hot chili peppers(C annuum) is a small, neat affair.  They seem to have an Amish-like modesty with white, straight petals with typically one flower per branch point (see photo).  The flowers of the C. baccatum & pubescens, however, have a painterly splash of color on each petal making it as beautiful as any in the garden (see photos).

Botany students keen on classification will find a pepper patch to be a challenge.  You can yell out "Capsicum chinense!" when you spot the unique crinkled leaves of the rare Brazilian "Dog Tooth" pepper but the multiple Peruvian "Aji" types will have you searching for small clues.  It's a comfort to find that even texts disagree on the classification of many pepper varieties.  The pepper gene bank in Brazil seems to have thrown up its hands when attempting to classify its 200+ accessions of unique Brazilian peppers.  They appear to abandon the Linnaean system in their initial classification of the collection in preference for the common farmer/consumer technique of sweet vs. hot; fresh vs. dry; size; shape and resemblance.  The latter category takes on an unusual and vivid meaning in the "Monkey Penis" types.  I don't know where Carl Linnaeus working in 1729 would have put such a pepper but I have no doubt but that he would have enjoyed it.

As fall approaches the pepper field studies are giving way to a more direct benefit:  eating.  The Spanish Padron peppers are hitting their stride and the Peruvian Aji Crystal pods are at their peak of citrus-y heat.  In about a week I'll be frying the first delicate, sweet Italian Friarello peppers and the Japanese Shishito peppers are close behind.  The peppers used for drying such as the famous New Mexican Chimayo or the glorious Mexican peppers from Oaxaca and Etla will need another month to ripen but the company of so many fresh peppers makes the wait painless.

I recommend a pepper patch to anyone with curiosity and an eye for beauty multiplied by subtle diversity.  A yen for fine eating is only a bonus.

My 2008 Pepper Patch was organically grown and attended to with an unusual amount of hand work.

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Bintje Potatoes

Bintje Potatoes

(Solanum tuberosum)

The Dutch are my kind of people.  There are about 16 million of them living in a country about the size of Maryland.  Their birth rate is below the level needed to maintain the population so they are voluntarily thinning the herd.  But even more impressive is the factoid that the Dutch have more than 150 varieties of potatoes with some presence in their produce markets.  To my knowledge you have to go back to the original stomping ground of the potato in South America to find that many potato varieties (Peru has ~3,000).  Compare that with the United States where 90% of our potatoes come from fewer than twelve varieties.  And need we mention that Americans are producing far more little Americans than we need or who are welcome?

But this missive is about potatoes and specifically an heirloom Dutch variety called “Bintje” (Pronounced “ben-jee”).     “Bintje” or “Miss Bintje” as it was known at its introduction in 1910 was the work of a botanist schoolmaster named Kornelis Friesland.   Master Friesland used potatoes as a hands-on teaching tool in his classroom to illustrate the principles of plant genetics and cross breeding.  He named each resulting hybrid potato after one of his children of which he had nine.  But when he produced the tenth hybrid potato in ~1905 (a cross between Munstersen and Fransen) he found inspiration in his best pupil, Miss Bintje Jansma.  And one might say that the rest of the story is “potato history.”

Today Bintje potatoes are the most widely grown yellow-fleshed potato in the world.  Farmers appreciate Bintje’s productivity and its tolerance to a wide range of soils.   Commercial produce firms like Bintje for its storage ability and its good looks.  Even on close inspection a Bintje is smooth and well rounded.  Plus its skin has a silk-like finish.  But where Bintje truly excels is in the kitchen.  Its starch solid content of ~20% puts it in the middle of the ‘wax vs flour’ spectrum and thus they can play either role.  And most important is that the flavor of a Bintje is exceptional.  Some describe it as having a unique light, nut-like flavor.   I don’t taste that note but I agree that it is an exceptional spud.

Despite Bintje’s world-wide reputation it is largely unknown in America.  Much of that may be due to America’s long-standing “potato color barrier.”  Until a Canadian university invented the Yukon Gold in the 1970s the American public wouldn’t look twice at a spud unless it had snow-white flesh.  But Yukon got a toehold in our market when restaurant chefs were intrigued by its “unusual look.”  Growers liked Yukon because they were huge (Remember that Americans nearly always think “Big food is better food.”)  And Yukon’s ultra-short growing season allow them to be planted nearly all the way North to the permafrost.  But the thorn-in-the-side issue with Yukon Gold is the taste.  Yukon is a pretty average-tasting potato.  And that’s on a good day.

So why hasn’t the exceptional Bintje beaten the pants off of Yukon Gold here in America?   It might be the size/productivity issues.  Or perhaps it is the economic phenomena of market dominance. I don’t know the answer to that mystery but I do know what the outcome would be if anyone does a potato tasting throw down between that yellow thing from Vancouver and the delicate, delightful Miss Bintje.

These Bintje potatoes were organically grown in my garden in the Valley of the Moon. 

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Green Mountain Potatoes

Green Mountain Potatoes
(Solanum tuberosum)



Green Mountain Potatoes were developed by Orson Alexander of Charlotte, Vermont in 1885.  Alexander and the University of Vermont developed a number of potato lines in response to the American potato blight of earlier years.  The parentage of Green Mountain is recorded as  Dunmore X Excelsior.  The plants are large with a fine display of white flowers.  They are, however, susceptible to a number of pests.

Green Mountain was grown extensively in the Eastern United States particularly in Maine until the 1950s.  It was displaced in the commercial market by oblong-shaped potatoes with  greater disease resistance.  Still, Green Mountain hangs on in small scale farms and in the gardens of potato cognocente.  It is prized for its exceptional flavor when baked or fried.

Recently Green Mountain potatoes have joined other historical vegetables and fruits on the Slow Foods “Ark of Taste” list.

These organically grown Green Mountain Potatoes were planted in my garden in the Valley of the Moon in early April .

Seed Source:      Moose Tubers
Waterville Maine, USA

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Cedar Potato 'Barrel'

A unique aspect of Maine potato farming at the turn of the century was the use of cedar barrels to collect the potatoes in the field.  Local cooperages in Aroostook County turned out barrels with cedar staves and ash hoops.  Each barrel (called a 'quarter') held 165 pounds of potatoes, which was the official unit of potato commerce in Maine until the late 1980s.   The use of cedar potato barrels has all but disappeared from Maine but a few Aroostook farmers still use them for harvest and short term storage.

The pictured  cedar potato 'barrel' was created expressly to hold heirloom Green Mountain Potatoes which was the principal variety grown in Aroostook for more than fifty years.  It was assembled at my farm in the Valley of the Moon using non-union labor, various materials and a mountain of imagination.

C Lindquist