Farro is the most controversial grain I’ve ever encountered. Here is it’s background: farro is an ancient grain, a type of wheat that was one of the first domesticated plants in the Middle East. However, it’s a low yielding crop and has been replaced over the years by its cousin modern wheat. It still remains […] Read more…
Archive of ‘Whole Grains’ category
Week 16: Chayote
Chayote is another one of the unusual ingredients I’ve found to have several aliases. In different countries it is known as sayote, mango squash, choko, chuchu, chow-chow, chocho, christophene, custard marrow, xuxu, mirliton, and the most fitting, vegetable pear and pear squash. They really do look a lot like pears, except a bit more wrinkly. […] Read more…
Week 4: The Mother of All Grains
Quinoa can be intimidating – it doesn’t even have an obvious pronunciation. Pronounced KEEN-wa, it is an ancient food that originated in South America. The Incas called quinoa “the mother of all grains,” but it’s actually seeds from a plant that is related to beets, spinach and chard. The seeds are however treated like rice […] Read more…
Week 2: What is a Kohlrabi?
Last Saturday, I was walking around the Farmer’s Market and saw this: I doubled back to check out the farmer’s table. It was purple kohlrabi, a member of the cabbage family. There are several varieties and they come in both purple and green, although I was a bit disappointed to find that the inner edible […] Read more…