I was grocery shopping this weekend - I lead a wild life - and the sales clerk, who was a woman in her early 30s, held up a leafy vegetable, needing me to identify it so she could punch in the code. It was kale, which she'd never heard of before. "What do you DO with it?" she asked me, looking at it dubiously, this big clump of dark-green, heavily-veined plant stuff in her hands.
I told her that I was going to add it to a white bean soup and serve some of the rest as greens, which got me sort of a weird look.
A lot of people, I find, don't eat greens - which is a weird looking sentence, when I look at it dispassionately. "Greens"? But I grew up having a wide variety of lightly boiled green leafy vegetables, generally tossed with some apple cider vinegar, since my mom loves vegetables tossed with apple cider vinegar and to me that's just standard vegetables. Beet greens? Bring 'em on, I'll eat them. Swiss chard? Dandelion greens? Gosh, I should be just bristling with obnoxious good health, all evidence to the contrary.
"I tried asparagus for the first time last weekend," said the friendly cashier, "and I really hated it. It was all mushy."
That sort of sentence fills me with despair because a lot of people are game enough to try new vegetables - although who has never eaten asparagus? Good grief. What do these people EAT? - but when they don't have the basic cooking skills needed to prepare them in the proper way, the vegetables don't even get a chance. I told the cashier that she should try roasting them and give them another chance, which earned me another dubious look. I was obviously a Weird Vegetable Lady, and I guess I'll just have to hang out with my mom.
"Try this!" I'll say, cheerily. "I found it growing in the barnyard! That smell? Oh, it's APPLE CIDER VINEGAR, of course!"
I always worry that I'm going to become one of those deeply judgemental, gauntly pebble-skinned health food store types. We used to know tons of them when we lived in Small City, and I have the following story to illustrate exactly what I fear becoming: The Girl was little and had fallen and the only thing, I say somewhat defensively, that would cheer her up was a bag of nacho chips. All righty. So we were sitting on a park bench and she was happily eating her chips when one of our scrawny, grey-faced acquaintances came over to chat. "I just find it so cute that you guys don't worry about what you eat!" she said.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH, shut up.
And at the same time, a LOT of people eat next to no vegetables, unless you really make a big argument for potatoes and canned corn and coleslaw. Vegetables aren't even all that off-putting - it's not like trying to develop a taste for offal or something - but people get into their supper ruts and the next thing you know, you're 31 and you've never had asparagus, which is just SAD. There's no reason for it - most vegetables cook quickly and there are many, many kid-friendly types out there and they ARE good for you, and developing a taste for vegetables will make you feel pleasantly self-righteous and virtuous. Yes, I am now a Vegetable Advocate, and I'm going to work my way through the alphabet of vegetables, starting with asparagus, since it was the vegetable that inspired my new mania - so today, my recipe site has how to steam, roast and slightly fancy-up asparagus and tomorrow will be B and so on, although I imagine I'll run into some troubles with U. And X.
How about you? Does your family like trying new vegetables, or are your kids like my husband as a child, who would hide under the table if he realized that there were onions in his food? (he's stopped doing that. Just fyi.) Do you have an unusual vegetable that you enjoy, or will I be sitting alone with my beet greens?
We love greens, too! We have some kale in the fridge that we're having tonight. My favorite way to eat greens is with lots of bacon grease, but I'm working on it. I guess olive oil will do. *Sigh*
Have you seen greatbigvegchallenge.blogspot.com ? Her site should give you lots of recipe ideas.
There are a lot of university students (kids born in the late 1980's) I've come across who believe that a bag of potatoes and a bag (yes, a bag, not a head) of iceberg lettuce are enough vegetable to keep them healthy.
We were buying some vegetables for our garden and my 5-year-old was protesting me buying eggplant, as it's not his favourite. "Don't they have broccoli or zucchini? Those are my favourites!" While certainly not strange vegetables, I don't think they're all that mainstream among the kindergarten set.
my name is aimee and i do not eat enough vegetables. i confess. i need help. i keep thinking that if i continue to eat enough fruit then it really doesn't matter that i don't eat veggies. but i'm sure that is not true. looking forward to some ways to make sure we start eating some.
Fiddleheads is our weird spring vegetable. I don't particularly like fiddleheads, but my husband extracts much glee from trying unique side dishes so, there you go. We cook them much like asparagus: lightly steamed and cradling some butter and pepper, or tossed lightly with olive oil and garlic and roasted.
My kids are fairly decent about eating their vegetables. How did we get them to embrace asparagus? We told them it makes your pee smell weird and, thus, turned good nutrition into a science experiment. We're so clever. (ha!)
I've registered here and finally subscribed to your recipe blog also. It's a productive day! Asparagus is one of my favorite veggies (even though I just had to scroll up to make sure I could spell it!) and I look forward to trying your recipes for it. One of my favorite ways to cook veggies is to cut a variety of peppers, squash, whatever, and drizzle them with olive oil. Sprinkle on a little bit of seasoning and throw them in a hot oven for a few minutes. Hubs and I love this and keep "introducing" it to our kids. Some day they'll catch on, I hope.
I really can't understand how you can get to adult-hood without even trying asparagus. Yeesh! Even my vegetable-phobic 3 year old loves asparagus..
I eat a lot of spinach (not really that adventurous of a green). And Bok Choi is a favourite in soups for us. I have to admit that when I used to get a veggy bin delivered I always found it hard to use up all the Swiss Chard. Any recipe ideas are appreciated (as you know :) )
We haven't even eaten any asparagus yet this season. It's too expensive and I can't stand it frozen or from a can. Blech! Mr. J. LOVES greens. Any kind of greens. Double blech!
Just yesterday, we gorged ourselves on grape tomatoes, carrots, red peppers and broccoli. YUM! Looking forward to all your veggie recipes though.
Are you ready for this? I don't eat cooked veggies. At all. Ick. They make me sick. I think my mother must have overcooked them when I was a kid and now no cooked veggies taste good. All bland and mushy. Glech!
I do love veggies though. Just raw. We eat a ton of veggies and I will cook them into a few dishes too, but mostly raw.
Are you freaking on me?
i'm actually a LOVER of veggies and greens of all kinds...but i don't eat my fruits. :)
*Big Grin* I don't even think I have to say it, but my weird vegetable crush is okra.
And I love collard greens, too.
I'm a Veggie Advocate, too, and I'm seeing rewards for my hard work with Bean, too, as today she ate carrots of her own accord and even tried some cucumber at my urging. And she ate all of her zucchini one meal last week!
It is scary how excited these things get me.
We're huge vegetables eaters here, and are always game to try new ones. HOWEVER, that goes mostly for us grown-ups. L. only likes raw broccoli.
Yummmmmm. I LOVE asparagus. I love it barbequed with a touch of olive oil or grilled with some fresh garlic or in a blue cheese cream sauce over pasta. Mmmmmmmm.
I can not imagine not loving greens. My veggie crush, other than asparagus, has to be either arugula or avocado (is it a fruit?).
So, so sad for those folks who have yet to discover the pleasure of a simple green.
"those deeply judgemental, gauntly pebble-skinned health food store types" Yes. Yes. I know the type.
I've only started eating cauliflower and broccoli in the last two years. Because my mother was -- nay, IS -- a horrible horrible cook who believes that vegetables need to be boiled to liquification in order to kill all the dirty, filthy germs that linger on them. Blech.
But the OmegaMan is redeeming many vegetables for me.
mmmm I love asparagus. We eat a lot of veggies and get the children to try them all. I have yet to prepare kale, but I will someday I am sure!
Well, I was one of those who never tried asparagus until I was in my 30's. Fortunately, I've grown to love them and many other vegetables.
However, I grew up in the South and I've always had a love for pickled beets, turnips, radishes, raw spinach, cauliflower, cabbage, etc. Never could I aquire a love for greens; they're too bitter in my opinion.
As an aside, I'm bound and determined to like beans more. Not only are they stinking good for you (pun intended), they're cheap. That works for me, not to mention my pocket book. So I wouldn't mind if your L could be legumes, even if that's a category all on its own.
Lol, what a great post! I'm a veggie advocate too, what a great title for us! My hubby is learning to appreciate green foods...we like asparagus and artichokes but I confess that I'm not as "greens" literate as I should be in the kitchen. My mom swears by dandelion greens, so I think I've probably had them before (??) but beet greens, nope. Collard greens, yes, but not cooked! I need to branch out, guess I have some earning to do before I call myself a vegetable advocate!
Great post, thanks for the smiles!
My in-laws eat tons of greens, it is part of the Greek diet. The toss them with lemon juice and olive oil. I don't mind them, but my kids won't go near them. My father-in-law even drinks the green water after sometimes after he boils them.
My goal is to just keep trying new veggies on my kids. I don't want it to be a struggle every night, but I don't want to let them off the hook either.
My husband worked at an organic farm for several years, so we LOVE our veggies and know them well. In fact, we just finished up a steamingly delicious dish of swiss chard (though, to be fair, it was sauteed in butter and covered with parmesan cheese) and we have a fridge full of kale and beet greens and sugar snap peas...
But really - does anyone not like sugar snap peas?
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