Sweet Sweet Bell Pepper

Another 5000 year old vegetable, this South American sweet counterpart to the hot pepper has been gracing tables all over the world thanks to Spanish and Portuguese explorers. And with no small help from the fact that bell peppers are extremely adaptable to most growing climates and conditions, this culinary wonder spread through the world via trade routes like wildfire being quickly incorporated into many different cuisines. They now are a staple in Europe where they are dried for paprika, an absolute must in Creole and Cajun dishes, they are used heavily in Mexico, Portugal, and Asia in all sorts of dishes.



Bell peppers have a great many uses. Cooked into dish after dish, they can also be munched down on raw. I like to add green bell pepper and red onion to my chicken salad. It makes for such a delightful crunch and adds a nice texture and flavor combination with the onion and celery. I also like to have green or red strips of bell pepper on my tuna sandwich. I also prefer to use orange bell pepper when grilling beef and vegetable kabobs. The idea there being to cook the meat, but only to char ever so slightly the vegetables. There is just something about cherry tomatoes and orange bell peppers right off the grill, it is incredible. A quick coring and a nice short dip on hot water and you can stuff your pepper with whatever you'd like.

The bell pepper can be dried for later use, too. They dry very well and if you like to make soups from a dry vegetable mix, I would very much recommend that you use both green and red varieties. Dehydrating peppers for later use is quite easy. You can use a food dehydrator or you can sun dry them (but that is another post).

While this capsaicin lacking pepper isn't hot, it is the only edible part of the plant. This pepper belongs to the Nightshade family, like potatoes, so no getting cute and trying to garnish with the leaves of this poisonous plant!

A Rainbow of Carrots

From Garden Green

This 5000 year old root crop did not start out as the lovely orange we know today. There were many colors: white, yellow, red, green, purple, and black. Orange was no where in the picture. The Egyptians had purple carrots, and these were traded and sold across the Arabian trade routes. With the Asians, Arabians and Africans in possession of their newly acquired purple root, the carrot took on the multitude of hues. The Romans knew the carrot as purple or white. The Africans knew it as purple or yellow along with Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern Iran.

From Garden Green

It was these carrots that the Moors brought to Europe during the 12th century. Another hundred years saw the carrot in France and Germany. The purple, white and yellow carrots were imported into the European countries and they grew a green, red and black. During the 15th century, the taproot made it to the shores of England.

From Garden Green

It may surprise you to know that the carrot did not make it's orange debut until a mutated strain of the yellow carrot came to the Dutch who cross-bred it with red varieties to create an orange specimen in honor of the royal House of Orange. Thus creating the sweet and very orange variety that we know and munch down on today.

From Garden Green

Green Tomato

Aunt Ruby's German Green Tomato

Green tomatoes are not necessarily unripe tomatoes, there are a few out there that when fully grown and mature are no other color but green. When the green tomato does ripen, it does change color, it just happens to be another shade of green.

Green Grape Tomato

While the tomatoes roots come from a small yellow berry from South America, the green varieties emerged during the 18th century or so. Green tomatoes were a favorite in the 19th century for pickling but this was more for the unripe fruits than for the green tomato varieties. Now mostly, they are prized for their flavor and the fact that they are heirloom varieties.

Green Zebra Tomato

I know more than one gardener that are completely anti-green tomato, but I believe they add texture and color and flavor to whatever salad or meal with which they are paired.

Black Tomatoes

Black Cherry

Black tomatoes are native to the Ukraine and didn't make it out of a small area in the southern part of the country until the 19th century when Russian soldiers took seeds home with them. Up until them, there were very few black tomato varieties out there but by the the seeds spread through Russia, there were all sorts of them. Now there are over fifty black tomatoes to choose from, ranging from black plum tomatoes, to Black Prince, Black Zebra and Southern Night. Germany, former Yugoslavia and also the US have been credited with new versions of the black tomato over the years.

Black Krim

Black tomatoes are noted for their very earthy flavor and are noted to have the strongest flavor of all tomatoes. They are prized for their lovely colors ranging from deep mahogany (Brandywine) to dark purple (Cherokee). There are many places to sell seeds for these tomatoes, but the safest bet is to go to a place like Seed Saver's Exchange who actually know the lines of the heirlooms (for the most part, they don't always get full histories when they get seeds).


Some varieties:

Kumato

Black Prince

Black Plum

Black Russian

Victory Gardens

A forum post got me to thinking about Victory Gardens and the roll they once played when First Lady Elenore Roosevelt planted hers at the White House. The Victory Garden was utilized in the US, Canada and the UK as a way to not only boost food production in those countries but it was a way to help keep the home fires burning brightly. The Victory Garden accounted for an astonishing 40% of the total fresh food production during the war years from about 20 million Americans.

Families were encouraged to plant their own, harvest and preserve their home grown foods through such major periodicals as Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping and Life. This helped to ease the burden on the labor and transportation shortages that were abound throughout the country and it also helped to save the commerically canned items for the troops. The government urged everyone to make Victory Gardens a family and community effort. And it made a tremendous difference, more than 20 million gardens were planted putting out about 10 tons of food.

Unfortunately, when the war ended so did the push for Urban American to be more self sufficient. The gardens that were grown during the war years declined significantly, but the concept never died. With our current economic status in the US and worldwide, the Victory Garden is making a come back, however small.