Friday, May 22, 2009

A Taste for History

What’s your favorite way to divide the world: Between glass-half-fullers and glass-half-empties?  Between lovers of cake or pie?  Between folks who think the world can be divided in half and those who don’t?  Well, I like to divide, and my favorite way is a matter of taste:  Black licorice versus red licorice.  I’m solidly in the black camp, always have been, and, by the way, it’s the only real licorice camp, as those of us know who also cherish black jellybeans, ouzo, fennel, and of course Good and Plenties, with their pink and white sass and toothsome chew.

Fewer and fewer folks seem to cherish the sweetly herbal, antique flavor of real licorice, and I wonder about other flavors that are becoming obsolete, like sasperilla, bitingly gingery ginger ale, blackstrap molasses, or candies perfumed with medieval flavors like clove or lavender. I first observed this “lost flavors” phenomenon when I was about 10 years old and on a family driving vacation through New England.  We stopped at a rustic store deep in the Vermont woods and I unzipped my fake leather coin purse for some historic-looking gum with a red line drawing of an Indian Chief on the little white box.  The gum was made of tree sap, a confection I had just learned about in 4th grade social studies, so I felt like a wise historian as I made my purchase. I pried open the box to find two pieces of what looked like cat turds and tasted exactly like—guess what?—tree sap!  I masked my grimace under sophisticated evaluation— “Interrrrresting …!”—and hastily purchased a rescue souvenir—a tin of tiny lavender candies with Marie Antoinette on the filigreed cover. I popped a pearl-sized candy in my mouth to clear out the piney flavor, and suddenly tasted … soap?  My modern palate failed me again, but I cultivated a taste for lavender by the day’s end, a lesson that stuck.

That early experience piqued my interest in the way taste evolves and what we might be leaving behind.  While we’re often nostalgic for past flavors at holiday time, early summer is better for exploring and reviving what we’re missing, since farmer’s markets provide a wonderful range of fresh flavors that connect us to our locovore past.

Humans have been cultivating and saving seeds for 12,000 years, with incredible biodiversity as the result—but we’ve lost most of it.  Thousands of varieties of rice were grown just in China.  Around the world over 5,000 varieties of potatoes thrived.  And now?  Only 4 potato varieties are widely cultivated, and they are bred more for longevity than tastiness.  In the 19th century, 7,000 varieties of applies grew in the United States alone! And here’s the kicker: 97 percent of the vegetables grown at the turn of the 20th century are now extinct. 97 percent!  That leaves us three percent of the flavors, three percent of the delight, three percent of the adventures for our deprived taste-buds (The Future of Food).

Happily, the time is ripe for pushing our palates into deliciously historic territory.  Given our long, warm autumns, it’s not too late to visit the Seed Savers website to order seeds for an heirloom tomato plant that might time-machine you back to when tomatoes were painted beauties of striped greens and golds, or pinks and bruised purples, their flesh scented with notes of lime or even chocolate.  The history of Seed Savers, in Decorah Iowa, is both humble and lofty, begun in the mid-1970s when Diane Ott Whealy’s dying grandfather passed along seeds from plants his family brought from Bavaria in the 1870s—a German Pink Tomato and a vining flower many of us grow today—the Grandpa Ott morning glory.

Our farmer’s markets increasingly feature funky heirloom tomatoes, purple asparagus, and a rainbow of greens, squashes and potatoes that are lightyears away from most supermarket fare that reflects homogenized agribusiness greed. Let your taste buds—and your well-placed dollars—support and demand food that carries history, biodiversity, and just plain deliciousness.

If you’re still in the red licorice camp, here are two temptations:  One: next time you make coleslaw, replace the cabbage with shaved raw Brussels sprouts and fennel, and replace the creamy dressing with a citrusy vinaigrette. Way to explode a side-dish, people!  And Two: the New York Times just ran an enticing article about absinthe—that famously antique and artistic licorice liquor, legalized in the U.S. in 2007.  It does not, in fact, make you crazy, it only drives your taste buds wild, while providing a cool green glow over ice in the late afternoon on a hot summer day … a perfect libation, and not only for the Good and Plenty set. See you in the back garden!

Broadcast by April Lidinsky on May 22, 2009
Community • Customs & Rituals • Food • Health • Home & Garden • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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