A celebrated vegetarian chef put her knowledge of gardening to work in tracing the complicated web of botanical relationships in her latest book, "Vegetable Literacy."
Deborah Madison, author of the landmark "Greens" cookbook, and the vegetable Bible , “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," said that her latest approach to cooking goes way beyond thinking about vegetables as green, yellow, or orange. She added that it's certainly not a new concept.
"I grew up in a family of plant people. My father was a botanist," said Madison. "And if you live with a parent who is walking around mumbling in Latin about this and that plant, it ends up driving your thinking that way."
Looking at vegetables with a botanist's eye -- instead of a cooks -- Madison has given readers a virtual roadmap for discovering a garden full of unexpected relatives. The book reveals the surprising relationships between vegetables, edible flowers and herbs within the same botanical families.
For example, knowing that dill, chervil, cumin, parsley, coriander, anise, lovage, and caraway come from the umbellifer family makes it clear why they’re such good matches for carrots, also a member of that family, she said.
Madison said she believes that the more someone understands the families, in which a person can sort vegetables, the more impact they can have in the kitchen.
"When you start to look at members of families, there is a parallel between plant families and human families," she said. “When a baby is born people will say ‘oh he has your lips, or his father’s eyes ‘, and the same can be said for plants that are related.”
For a sample of Madison's recipes, check out her recipe below for an interesting take on carrot soup:
Ivory Carrot Soup with a Fine Dice of Orange Carrots
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 1 pound white carrots, scrubbed and thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon raw white rice
- Sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 1 thyme sprig
- 4 cups water or light chicken stock
- Few tablespoons finely diced orange carrots and/or other colored carrots
- Freshly ground pepper
- About 1 tablespoon minced fine green carrot tops
Preparation:
Warm the butter and oil in a soup pot and add the onion, white carrots, rice, 1 teaspoon salt, and the sugar and thyme. Cook over medium heat for several minutes, turning everything occasionally. Add 1 cup of the water, cover, turn down the heat, and cook while you heat the remaining 3 cups water. When the water is hot, add it to the pot, cover, and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes.
While the soup is cooking, cook the diced carrots in salted boiling water for about 3 minutes and then drain.
When ready, let cool slightly, then remove and discard the thyme sprig. Puree the soup until smooth in a blender. Taste for salt and season with the pepper. Reheat if it has cooled.
Ladle the soup into bowls, scatter the diced carrots and carrot tops over each serving, and serve.
