Country Vegetable

Country Vegetable

A Controversial Plant with Great Appeal and a Poisonous Past:

The tomato is thought to come from South America as a wild crop. When introduced into Europe and North America in the 1500s, many rejected the tomato as a food because it is a member of a family of poisonous plants; the nightshade. The serving customs of the times did not help; serving tomatoes on pewter plates would often render the tomatoes poisonous as the acidity of the tomatoes interacted with the metal of the pewter.

Pease Porridge Hot, Pease Porridge Cold: Peas were one of the earliest food crops: easy to grow, rich in energy, easy to store and prepare. Archaeologists, working in present day Thailand, have found peas almost 12,000 years old.

Back in the Middle Ages in Europe, porridges were cooked in a large kettle by the "lower classes" who would, each day, add new ingredients to the batch leftover from the day before. Peas were a regular ingredient in these porridges as is wonderfully captured in the nursery rhyme, "Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot, nine days old."

Since their days of kettle cooking, peas have been bred for better quality, color and flavor, which gives us the firm yet tender sweet peas we enjoy in our soups today!

Since Roman times, Pepper has been considered the most important of all spices. It was one of the earliest items traded in Asia and Europe. Trade between peoples began the globalization of the world and spice became the world's "currency" of international trade; living up to the moniker: the king of all spices.

The Goddess, the Dragon and the Breath Mint: Its genus name Artemesia comes from Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon and may be because of the plant's silvery "moonlight" color. Its species' name is dracunculus, which translates as "little dragon." The "little dragon" reference may refer either to the appearance of the roots of the plant or their traditional use as a cure for snakebites.

The snakebite-cure theory has never been proven, but with its licorice taste, we know it has been effectively used, for centuries, as a breath freshener…and it adds a wonderful, complex flavor to our soup!