There is an interesting article in the NY Times that is, unfortunately, very poorly titled and includes a stupid picture, but it’s about a great topic.
On a quick glance even I thought that the piece was about dumpster-diving (or, I guess, “urban foraging”). Get past that revulsion and actually read it.
What it’s about is how farmers’ markets and CSAs provide people with parts of plants never seen in the grocery store, and ways to strive to use everything, mirroring the “nose to tail” approach for animals.
The article talks about the subject on three levels:
- Using unfamiliar but nutritious and tasty parts of produce, such as garlic scapes, beet greens, and cauliflower leaves
- Finding creative ways to prepare less-used parts of produce, such as carrot tops (which tend to be very bitter)
- Pursuing old-school techniques to use even the trash / tail-end of your produce, such as corn cobs and watermelon rinds, by doing things such as making vegetable stock with them.
We have worked hard to do all of these things since we have started eating 100% real foods from the greenmarket. We will continue creating how-to posts as we go!
