Why I'm happy when my cilantro bolts

I used to morn when my cilantro bolted. No more leaves to harvest, just big clusters of not particularly showy flowers.  Then I learned about green coriander seeds.

L to R: Cilantro, green coriander, mature coriander

Cilantro and Coriander are different names for the same plant. When we harvest the leaves, we call it cilantro. When we harvest the mature seeds, we call the coriander. The flavors of the two are both delicious, and quite different. But there is a magical in-between time when the seeds have started to develop, but are still immature: green coriander. I'd heard someone you could eat them at that stage, so last year I took a nibble.

Wow.

Think cilantro, but some sort of wonderful perfected and glorified cilantro with a lemony almost fruity flavor to it, what cilantro wishes it was but never quite is. In short, I basically don't harvest cilantro leaves any more. I plant it, and wait eagerly for it to bolt, so I can harvest these little nuggets of happiness. Pick them when they are little plump green balls, but before they start to turn brown and toughen. The plant will produce for a surprisingly long time, a couple months for me, if I keep them harvested. I'm careful, however, to never harvest them all, because left to their own devices, they'll self-sow, providing me wonderful flavor every year with essentially no work.

Green coriander is great in anything you'd put cilantro in. It is wonderful with beans, tomatoes (salsa!), and almost anything involving lemon or bacon. Try it in your favorite pasta or potato salad for instant happiness.

Chef + plant breeder + mint = exciting new flavors

Longtime readers will know that I love the intersection of plant breeding and great food, which is why I was so excited when looking through Richters Herbs' website, I noticed their mint offerings. I know the usual varieties: spearmint, peppermint, apple, pineapple, and chocolate mint, but here was a whole new range of mints with names like 'Candy Lime', 'Wintergreen', 'Berries and Cream', and even 'Oregano-thyme'! Reading the descriptions got me even more excited. These are part of a whole series of varieties developed by one Jim Westerfield who, in addition to being a plant breeder and mint enthusiast, is creator of an award winning gourmet restaurant, Westerfield House! I had to order some.

As soon as the box arrived, I pulled them out and start sniffing and nibbling my way through the selections. I wasn't disappointed. We're talking whole new sets of flavors here. I can't wait to start cooking with them! And they're mints, which means easy (sometimes too easy...) to grow!

Here are the 5 varieties I ordered, and my comments on them:

'Wintergreen'
I was skeptical about this one... really? Wintergreen? The dominate flavor is still mint, but there is a pronounced real winter green flavor as well! It also must have a really high methol concentration, because chewing a leaf fills your mouth with that distinctive tingly cooling sensation. I love making mint lemonade... this variety would be perfect for it! Or a mint-berry smoothie! Or... so much more! I hope this guy is a vigorous as most mints, because I'm going to be harvesting a lot of it.

'Oregano-thyme'
Again, I had to order this one because I couldn't quite believe it. Chewing a leaf, I don't know if I'd say oregano or thyme, but the flavor is definitely some sort of cross between mint and something of the rosemary-oregano-sage-thyme ilk. It really feels like a NEW flavor to play with! I can't wait to get it in the kitchen.

'Candy Lime'
This one is delicious. I mean, really, really delicious. Perhaps my favorite flavor just nibbling the leaves straight off the plant. It does indeed have a hint of lime to it, enough to make my boyfriend instantly say "Mojito!"

'Fruit Sensations'
I was a little disappointed here. This one tastes like mint. A very good mint, but nothing extraordinary. In other company, I would probably rave about it, but when the others are so delicious, I don't think I'll really ever use this one.

'Citrus Kitchen'
This one is also quite delicious, and surprisingly has a definite orange flavor to it. My first thought was that this is what I wish mint chocolate chip ice cream tasted like. Now I might have to get an ice cream maker... The tag recommends putting it in orange juice. I might just have to try that.

Friday Cartoon: tomatoes

Early this year, in the middle of tomato season, I did a cartoon about the joys of excess tomatoes. Some of you wondered what I could possibly do with them all. I do this:

Why grocery store apples are better than peaches

I was chatting the other day with a friend about 'Honeycrisp' apples. How yummy they are, and how everyone in the apple growing, shipping and selling industry hates them. 'Honeycrisp' is a pain to grow, and doesn't ship or store very well. That is why they cost so much more at the grocery store than the less tasty, but easier to grow, apples next to them.

'Honeycrisp' apples are also interesting because they are a relatively new variety that is actually better tasting than older ones like the infamous 'Red Delicious.' When is the last time you ate a peach or pear or pepper or tomato from the grocery store and thought, "Wow! These are better than what I'm used to!" All the other produce in the store seems to get tougher, drier, blander and less worth eating with each passing year, while apples have actually gotten a little better. Why are apples the exception?

There is one simple reason: Apples are sold by variety. You never go buy "apples," you go buy 'Braeburn' or 'Pink Lady' or 'Gala.' With the actual names of the varieties in front of us, we, the consumers, get to pick the ones we like best. Growers of superior, but difficult, varieties like Honeycrisp can charge more for them to make it worth their while. But look next to the apple section, and you see a big bin labeled "Peaches." That's all. No variety name, just "Peaches." Same with the grapes, tomatoes, peppers, and virtually everything else in the store.

The effect of this lack of variety names was brought home to me a few years ago I got a chance to visit a university research farm where they were testing different varieties of peaches to see which would be best for local farmers to plant. As we tasted through some of the varieties, there was one we all loved called 'Ernie's Choice.' Whoever Ernie was, he knew how to choose, as it is a divine peach -- rich, tender, flavorful and incredibly juicy. Run-down-your-chin-and-ruin-your-clothes juicy. So how did this lovely peach do in the variety trials? Were they recommending 'Ernie's Choice' to all their growers? Quite the contrary -- it ranked as "unmarketable" because it is too tender, too juicey. It can't be harvested and shiped cheaply without damaging it. Anyone growing it would have to charge more for it and no grocery store buyer is going to pay more for them, because without a variety name they have no way to justify charging higher prices to their customers. Grocers are just buying peaches. The cheapest peaches available.

Without variety names attached to our produce, it is a race to the bottom. Whoever can breed and grow the toughest, cheapest, best storing variety wins. If we went to the store and found big bins of generic "apples" you can bet there would be no 'Honeycrisp' in that bin. It would be all 'Red Delicious' or something even worse but even easier to grow. Without variety names our apples would be like our tomatoes, peaches, and everything else at the store, and we, the consumers, would never have the chance to choose taste over price.

I hope that will change -- with the rise of home gardening and farmers markets, I think more and more people are realizing that fruits and vegetables are not just generic commodities, but come in distinct varieties. Hopefully grocery stores will realize it as well, and start telling us what we are actually buying. Maybe we'll even get the chance to buy 'Ernie's Choice' peaches someday.

Addendum: Do check out the comments where WmJas links to the meaning of "Red" in Turkish... Suddenly the name 'Red Delicious' makes so much sense.