Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

by Barbara Kingsolver

  “Do I have to explain the obvious?” I asked impatiently. “Somebody might break in and put zucchini in our house.”

  It was only July. I’d admit no more squash, but I was not ready to admit defeat.

  * * *

  The Spirit of Summer

  BY CAMILLE

  It’s a Saturday afternoon in mid-July, and our farm is overflowing with life. After each trip to the garden we come down the hill bearing armloads of cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes. We’re now also harvesting peppers, eggplants, onions, green beans, and chard. In a few hours some friends will be coming over for supper, so my mom and I study our pile of fresh vegetables and begin to prepare. We’ll start by making the cucumber soup, which will be served first and needs time to chill. Fourteen small cucumbers go into the blender, one after the other, transformed into bright green, puréed freshness as they meet the whirling blades. Then we stir in the skim-milk yogurt we made yesterday. Finally, we add fresh herbs to the cool, light mixture and wedge the bowl into the refrigerator between gigantic bags of zucchini.

  Now it’s time for the bread baking. This is the man’s job in our household, so Steven gets out his various bags of flour and begins to work his magic. A cup of this and a tablespoon of that fly into the mixer until he’s satisfied. Then the machine’s bread hook folds it all together and it’s left to rise. Later our friends arrive, and Nancy, a true bread artisan, works with Steven to roll out and shape some plump baguettes. Outdoors, a fire has been crackling for hours in the big stone bread oven we built this spring. Nancy has been eager to come over and help try it out. She and Steven set the baguettes on floured pans and slide them into the oven, which has been cleared of coals. The temperature inside is nearly 700 degrees.

  Meanwhile Mom and I are working on dessert: cherry sorbet. We picked the cherries from the tree that shades our front porch, teasing us by bearing the most fruit on its highest branches. Every summer Steven and I climb ladders we’ve set into the back of the pickup truck strategically parked under the tree, while Mom says “Stop! Be careful!” and then finally climbs up there with us. Even so, bushels of shiny, black cherries still stay out of reach for everybody that doesn’t have wings. The blue jays get their share, but we still brought in quite a haul this year. Mom pits the cherries, staining her hands the purplish-black color of pen ink, while I heat water and honey on the stove. We mix the fruit and syrup together and let the concoction chill so it will be ready to pour into our ice cream maker after supper.

  The baguettes don’t take long to bake in the hot stone oven. After about fifteen minutes we take them out and cut them open. The smell is enough to make you give up on cooking a gourmet meal and just eat bread instead. We resist, however, slicing the whole loaves lengthwise and laying the baguettes open-faced on a pan. We stack them with grilled vegetables and cheese, starting with slices of mozzarella we made yesterday with the help of my little sister and our Italian grandmother. Next we pile on slices of nicely browned yellow squash, pattypan squash, green peppers, eggplants, and onions that I’ve just taken off the grill. The final layer is fresh tomatoes with basil. We stick the pans under the broiler for a few minutes, then sit down to enjoy our meal. I feel like I’ve been cooking all day, but it’s so worth it.

  The soup is amazing after its rest in the fridge. It’s the perfect finish to a humid afternoon spent chopping vegetables or hovering over a hot grill. We savor every bite, and then bring out the vegetable-loaded baguettes. The broiler has melted the cheese just right, so everything melds together into one extraordinary flavor.

  After we sit a while talking, it’s time for cherry sorbet. The dessert is almost too purple to be real, and an ideal combination of sweet and sour. Everyone finishes smiling. This has been one of the best meals of my life, not only because it was so delicious, but because all this food came from plants we watched growing from tiny seeds to jungles. We witnessed the moment in the mozzarella’s life that the milk turned into curds and whey. We saw the bread go from sandy-colored glop to crusty, golden gorgeous. We had a relationship with this meal.

  Here are the recipes that went into our fabulous midsummer menu. I’ve also included two for secretly serving lots of zucchini. Another very easy way to cook squash is to slice it lengthwise, toss in a bowl with olive oil, salt, thyme, and oregano, and slap it on a hot grill alongside burgers or chicken. Whole green beans are also wonderful grilled this way (a grill basket will keep them from leaping into the flames). The squash cookie recipe has passed the ten-year-old test.

  CUCUMBER YOGURT SOUP

  8 small-medium cucumbers, peeled and chopped

  3 cups water

  3 cups plain yogurt

  2 tablespoons dill

  1 tablespoon bottled lemon juice (optional)

  1 cup nasturtium leaves and petals (optional)

  Combine ingredients in food processor until smooth, chill before serving. Garnish with nasturtium flowers.

  GRILLED VEGETABLE PANINI

  Summer squash (an assortment)

  Eggplant

  Onion

  Peppers

  Olive oil

  Rosemary

  Oregano

  Thyme

  Salt and pepper

  Slice vegetables lengthwise into strips no thicker than ½ inch. Combine olive oil and spices (be generous with the herbs) and marinate vegetables, making sure all faces of the vegetable slices are covered. Then cook on grill until vegetables are partially blackened; you may want to use grill basket for onions and peppers.

  2 loaves French bread (16 to 18 inches)

  2 8-ounce balls mozzarella

  3 large tomatoes

  Basil leaves

  Cut loaves of bread lengthwise. Arrange bread on baking sheets and layer with grilled vegetables first, slices of mozzarella next, and slices of tomato last. Drizzle with a little bit of olive oil and place the baking sheets under a broiler until cheese is melted. Garnish with leaves of fresh basil. Cut in pieces to serve.

  CHERRY SORBET

  2 heaping cups pitted cherries

  ¾ cup sugar (or honey to taste)

  1/3 cup water

  While one person pits the cherries, another can combine sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved completely (syrup will be clear at this point) and allow the mixture to cool. When cherries are pitted combine them with syrup in a blender. Blend on low until smooth, then refrigerate mixture until you are ready to pour it into an ice cream maker.

  DISAPPEARING ZUCCHINI ORZO

  ¾-pound package orzo pasta (multicolored is fun)

  Bring 6 cups water or chicken stock to a boil and add pasta. Cook 8 to 12 minutes.

  1 chopped onion, garlic to taste

  3 large zucchini

  Olive oil for sauté

  Use a cheese grater or mandoline to shred zucchini; sauté briefly with chopped onion and garlic until lightly golden.

  Thyme

  Oregano

  ¼ cup grated Parmesan or any hard yellow cheese

  Add spices to zucchini mixture, stir thoroughly, and then remove mixture from heat.

  Combine with cheese and cooked orzo, salt to taste, serve cool or at room temperature.

  ZUCCHINI CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

  (Makes about two dozen)

  1 egg, beaten

  ½ cup butter, softened

  ½ cup brown sugar

  1/3 cup honey 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

  Combine in large bowl.

  1 cup white flour 1 cup whole wheat flour

  ½ teaspoon baking soda

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  ¼ teaspoon cinnamon

  ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

  Combine in a separate, small bowl and blend into liquid mixture

  1 cup finely shredded zucchini

  12 ounces chocolate chips

  Stir these into other ingredients, mix well. Drop by spoonful onto greased baking sheet, and flatten with the back of a spoon. Bake at 350°, 10 to 15 minutes.<
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  Don’t tell my sister.

  Download these and all other Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recipes at www.AnimalVegetableMiracle.com

  SQUASH-SEASON MEAL PLAN

  Sunday ~ Braised chicken with squash, corn, and cilantro

  Monday ~ Grilled vegetable panini, served with green salad

  Tuesday ~ Sliced cold chicken (cooked Sunday) and zucchini orzo

  Wednesday ~ Grilled hamburgers with grilled green beans and squash

  Thursday ~ Egg-battered squash blossoms stuffed with cheese, served with salad

  Friday ~ Pizza with grilled baby squash, eggplant, caramelized onions, and mozzarella

  Saturday ~ Lamb chops and baked stuffed zucchini

  * * *

  13 • LIFE IN A RED STATE

  August

  I’ve kept a journal for most of the years I’ve been gardening. I’m a habitual scribbler, jotting down the triumphs and flops of each season that I always feel pretty sure I’d remember anyway: that the Collective Farm Woman melons were surprisingly prissy; that the Dolly Partons produced such whopping tomatoes, the plants fell over. Who could forget any of that? Me, as it turns out. Come winter when it’s time to order seeds again, I always need to go back and check the record. The journal lying open beside my bed also offers a handy incentive at each day’s end for making a few notes about the weather, seasonal shifts in bloom and fruiting times, big family events, the day’s harvest, or just the minutiae that keep me entertained. The power inside the pea-sized brain of a hummingbird, for example, that repeatedly built her nest near our kitchen door: despite her migrations across continents and the storms of life, her return date every spring was the same, give or take no more than twenty-four hours.

  Over years, trends like that show up. Another one is that however jaded I may have become, winter knocks down the hollow stem of my worldliness and I’ll start each summer again with expectations as simple as a child’s. The first tomato of the season brings me to my knees. Its vital stats are recorded in my journal with the care of a birth announcement: It’s an Early Girl! Four ounces! June 16! Blessed event, we’ve waited so long. Over the next few weeks I note the number, size, and quality of the different tomato varieties as they begin to come in: two Green Zebras, four gorgeous Jaune Flammés, one single half-pound Russian Black. I note that the latter wins our summer’s first comparative taste test—a good balance of tart and sweet with strong spicy notes. I describe it in my journal the way an oenophile takes notes on a new wine discovery. On the same day, I report that our neighbor wants to give away all her Russian Blacks on the grounds they are “too ugly to eat.” I actually let her give me a couple.

  As supply rises, value depreciates. Three weeks after the **First Tomato!** entry in my journal, I’ve dropped the Blessed Event language and am just putting them down for the count: “10 Romas today, 8 Celebrity, 30 Juliet.” I continue keeping track so we’ll know eventually which varieties performed best, but by early August I’ve shifted from numbers to pounds. We bring in each day’s harvest in plastic grocery sacks that we heave onto a butcher’s scale in our kitchen, jotting down the number on a notepad before moving on to processing.

  At this point in the year, we had officially moved beyond hobby scale. My records would show eventually whether we were earning more than minimum wage, but for certain we would answer the question that was largely the point of this exercise: what does it take, literally, to keep a family fed? Organizing the spring planting had been tricky. How many pumpkins does a family eat in a year? How many jars of pickles? My one area of confidence was tomatoes: we couldn’t have too many. We loved them fresh, sliced, in soups and salads, as pasta sauces, chutneys, and salsa. I’d put in fifty plants.

  In July, all seemed to be going according to plan when we hauled in just over 50 pounds of tomatoes. In August the figure jumped to 302 pounds. In the middle of that month, our neighbor came over while I was canning. I narrowed my eyes and asked her, “Did I let you give me some tomatoes a few weeks ago?”

  She laughed. She didn’t want them back, either.

  Just because we’re overwhelmed doesn’t mean we don’t still love them, even after the first thrill wears off. I assure my kids of this, when they point out a similar trend in their baby books: dozens of photos of the first smile, first bath, first steps…followed by little evidence that years two and three occurred at all. Tomatoes (like children) never achieve the villainous status of squash—they’re too good to wear out their welcome, and if they nearly do, our in-town friends are always happy to take them. Fresh garden tomatoes are so unbelievably tasty, they ruin us utterly and forever on the insipid imports available in the grocery. In defiance of my childhood training, I cannot clean my salad plate in a restaurant when it contains one of those anemic wedges that taste like slightly sour water with a mealy texture. I’m amazed those things keep moving through the market, but the world apparently has tomato-eaters for whom “kinda reddish” is qualification enough. A taste for better stuff is cultivated only through experience.

  Drowning in good tomatoes is the exclusive privilege of the gardener and farm-market shopper. The domain of excess is rarely the lot of country people, so we’ll take this one when we get it. From winter I always look back on a season of bountiful garden tomatoes and never regret having eaten a single one.

  At what point did we realize we were headed for a family tomato harvest of 20 percent of a ton? We had a clue when they began to occupy every horizontal surface in our kitchen. By mid-August tomatoes covered the countertops end to end, from the front edge to the backsplash. No place to set down a dirty dish, forget it, and no place to wash it, either. The sink stayed full of red orbs bobbing in their wash water. The stovetop stayed covered with baking sheets of halved tomatoes waiting for their turn in the oven. The cutting board stayed full, the knives kept slicing.

  August is all about the tomatoes, every year. That’s nothing new. For a serious gardener, the end of summer is when you walk into the kitchen and see red. We roast them in a slow oven, especially the sweet orange Jaune Flammes, which are just the right size to slice in half, sprinkle with salt and thyme, and bake for several hours until they resemble cow flops (the recipe says “shoes,” if you prefer). Their slow-roasted, caramelized flavor is great in pizzas and panini, so we freeze hundreds of them in plastic bags. We also slice and slide them into the drawers of the food dryer, which runs 24–7. (“Sun-dried” sounds classy, but Virginia’s sun can’t compete with our southern humidity; a low-voltage dryer renders an identical product.) We make sauce in huge quantity, packed and processed in canning jars. By season’s end our pantry shelves are lined with quarts of whole tomatoes, tomato juice, spaghetti sauce, chutney, several kinds of salsa, and our favorite sweet-sour sauce based on our tomatoes, onions, and apples.

  August brings on a surplus of nearly every vegetable we grow, along with the soft summer fruits. Squash are vegetable rabbits in terms of reproductive excess, but right behind them are the green beans, which in high season must be picked every day. They’re best when young, slender, and super-fresh, sautéed and served with a dash of balsamic vinegar, but they don’t stay young and slender for long. We’ve found or invented a fair number of disappearing-bean recipes; best is a pureed, bright green dip or spread that’s a huge crowd pleaser until you announce that it’s green bean paté. It keeps and freezes well, but needs a more cunning title. Our best effort so far is “frijole guacamole,” Holy Mole for short.

  We process and put up almost every kind of fruit and vegetable in late summer, but somehow it’s the tomatoes, with their sunny flavor and short shelf life, that demand the most attention. We wish for them at leisure, and repent in haste. Rare is the August evening when I’m not slicing, canning, roasting, and drying tomatoes—often all at the same time. Tomatoes take over our life. When Lily was too young to help, she had to sit out some of the season at the kitchen table with her crayons while she watched me work. The summer she was five, she wrote and illustrated a s
mall book entitled “Mama the Tomato Queen,” which fully exhausted the red spectrum of her Crayola box.

  Some moment of every summer finds me all out of canning jars. So I go to town and stand in line at the hardware store carrying one or two boxes of canning jars and lids, renewing my membership in a secret society. Elderly women and some men, too, will smile their approval or ask outright, “What are you canning?” These folks must see me as an anomaly of my generation, an earnest holdout, while the younger clientele see me as a primordial nerdhead, if they even notice. I suppose I’m both. If I even notice.

  But canning doesn’t deserve its reputation as an archaic enterprise murderous to women’s freedom and sanity. It’s straightforward, and for tomato and fruit products doesn’t require much special equipment. Botulism—the famously deadly bacterium that grows in airless, sealed containers and thus can spoil canned goods—can’t grow in a low-pH environment. That means acidic tomatoes, grapes, and tree fruits can safely be canned in a simple boiling water bath. All other vegetables must be processed in a pressure canner that exposes them to higher-than-boiling temperatures; it takes at least 240°F to kill botulism spores. The USDA advises that pH 4.6 is the botulism-safe divide between these two methods. Since 1990, test kitchens have found that some low-acid tomato varieties sit right on the fence, so tomato-canning instructions published years ago may not be safe. Modern recipes advise adding lemon juice or citric acid to water-bath-canned tomatoes. Botulism is one of the most potent neurotoxins on our planet, and not a visitor you want to mess with.

  Acidity is the key to safety, so all kinds of pickles preserved in vinegar are fair game. In various parts of the world, pickling is a preservation method of choice for everything from asparagus to zucchini chutney; I have an Indian recipe for cinnamon-spiced pickled peaches. But our Appalachian standard for the noncucumber pickle is the Dilly Bean, essentially dill pickles made of green beans. This year when I was canning them on a July Saturday, Lily and a friend came indoors from playing and marched into the kitchen holding their noses, wanting to know why the whole house smelled like cider vinegar. I pointed my spoon at the cauldron bubbling on the stove and explained I was making pickles. I do wonder what my kids’ friends go home to tell their parents about us. This one dubiously surveyed the kitchen: me in my apron, the steaming kettle, the mountain of beans I was trimming to fit into the jars, the corners where my witch’s broom might lurk. “I didn’t know you could make pickles from beans,” she countered. I assured her you could make almost anything into pickles. She came back an hour later when I was cleaning up and my finished jars were cooling on the counter, their mix of green, purple, and yellow beans standing inside like little soldiers in an integrated army. She held her eyes very close to one of the jars and announced, “Nope! They didn’t turn into pickles!”