Purple Fries

IMG_5910, originally uploaded by zawelski.

(posted by Dave)
Okay, sorry all you vegetarians and vegans out there - this post should come as a bit of a palate cleanser for you. I have the great fortune to be married to the one woman who can find the only organic farm offering CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) shares in all of Southwest China within three months of moving here.

Since it never really dips much below freezing here in Sichuan, the growing season is year-round. We thus get a big bagful of fresh organic veggies twice a week, delivered to us every Tuesday and Friday by farmer Gao right to the university gate, a minute’s walk away from our apartment.

One thing that happens when you join a CSA is that you immediately notice your diet start to change. Instead of choosing what you would like to eat and then picking out groceries, your food chooses you instead. You tend to eat fewer elaborately prepared concoctions, and instead, make more simply prepared dishes with the vegetables that the season has given to you.

In China, this gets more interesting, because the “what the heck is this vegetable?” factor is even bigger. Every day, we eat a big huge batch of greens that we don’t know the name of. Jane is also now pickling radishes and garlic and many other yummy things. (If you ask her really nice, maybe she’ll write you a blog post about it.)

Another example is purple yams, which, as you can see above, are like sweet potatoes, but, yes, bright purple. So, what do we eat? Purple fries! Simply chop up your purple yams into strips, heat up some oil to smoking on your industrial-strength kitchen burner, throw the yam strips in with a bit of salt, stir like crazy, and five minutes later, you’ve got a dish featuring purple vegetables that your kids will beg for. (Okay, having ketchup also helps a bit here.)