To Feed A Hungry World

[filkertom]

Sadness. The father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, has passed away at the age of 95. Borlaug won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in increasing agricultural production and basically saving hundreds of millions of people from starvation. A living example of both American know-how and human compassion, Borlaug said in his Nobel acceptance speech:

We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life. For a decent and humane life we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing and effective and compassionate medical care.

Farewell, sir, and the world thanks you.

What are your favorite veggies? The go-to ones. I can't imagine life without onions, tomatoes, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, of course, but I also have an incredible love of broccoli, rutabaga, and green beans. Radishes are moving up the list quickly. And some things that I normally don't like much, e.g., eggplant and asparagus, are pretty darn good when given a good tempura treatment.

Comments

[faithwallis.livejournal.com]

The go-tos: Lettuce of any sort, spinach, onions, carrots, turnips
The ones I LOVE if cooked well: asparagus, brussel sprouts, broccoli, and green beans (fresh, not canned)
Special shout out to tomatoes mixed with either herbs or peppers. I can't stand raw tomato otherwise.

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

I like steamed asparagus with butter. I adore carrots with cinnamon butter. I like my green beans cut in the french style, with garlic. I prefer my corn in bread form. Sweet potatoes, baked, with cinnamon and butter, lightly salted.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of veggies I adore, but my number one favorite is avocado. When rehd_fawx visited me last month she made these sandwiches with cucumber, avocado, scallions, and cream cheese that were pure heaven.

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

Great googly moogly, how could I have forgotten the avocado?! That sucker I will open, dab on a wee bit of dressing (or a bit of salt), and nom away!

[a-steep-hill.livejournal.com]

Do note that "the green revolution" == the worldwide adoption of mechanized, high-input agriculture. It's essentially a form of mining of the soil, and utterly dependent on fossil fuels. Borlaug may have saved a billion from starvation, and in doing so condemned six.

[vik_thor]

Yes, this.

In addition to the general use of fossil fuels in "The Green Revolution", Indian farmers (and probably other developing countries, but India is where I've heard about it from) tend to overuse the fertilizers and biocides, under the theory that is a little is good, more is better. This has led to health problems.

Also, the hybridized monocultures in farms has devastated the biodiversity of farms. (Search on Heirloom varietals). Since in general, you can't save seeds from hybridized plants, farmers are dependent upon the megacorps.

All that stated, back to the original question:
veggies: cauliflower (raw or pickled), radishes (red is good, but the white icicle ones are better, but hard to find out here), potatoes, sweet potatoes
fruits: bell peppers, banana peppers (also hard to find around here), apples, cucumbers (primarily pickled), corn

[controuble.livejournal.com]

Cauliflower and peas for raw veggies; asparagus, broccoli, green beans and spinach for cooked. Unfortunately, I am allergic to sweet potatoes and I don't get along very well with kidney beans or lima beans.

[pjhandley.livejournal.com]

I do so love veggies! Potatoes, onions, peppers (both sweet and hot), carrots, green beans, wax beans, broccoli, califlower, eggplant, asparagus, brussels sprouts (oh, how I adore my sprouts), cucumbers, sweet corn, tomatoes (even if they really are a fruit), sweet peas, snow peas, sugar snap peas raw by the handful.....sigh. I like to use rutabagas in stews and roasts. Oh, and my sister makes the best candied yams. darn it, now I'm hungry.

[batyatoon]

Raw: tomatoes and baby spinach are the primary ones. Avocado is very nice, but in the nature of a treat rather than an everyday. Carrots, celery, and cucumbers are good too, but I can go without them for a long while and not miss them.

Cooked: asparagus, broccoli, string beans (all lightly steamed and still al dente, please), artichokes, mushrooms, onions, zucchini. Garlic too, though I tend to think of garlic as more of a spice than an ingredient. Sweet potatoes are nice too. Turnip, parsnip, and leek I tend to use in soups more than by themselves, but oh they are good.


Also I am not supposed to have potatoes or sweet corn on my current diet, but oh sweet pete do I miss them. :(

[wookiee71.livejournal.com]

I love spinach, corn, rice and avocados.

I'm saddened by his passing. I only just saw Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode focusing on his efforts and really came away thinking he was a fantastic and amazing man. I wish more people in the world could be like him. I know I want to try.

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

Bacon! :)

Bell peppers, hot peppers, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, avocado, celery, cauliflower, potatoes, sweet potatoes...Not a fan of most other veggies, though. I used to hate broccoli, now I only eat it in broccoli slaw.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Good sweet tomatoes, broccoli, and asparagus. I'm not much of a veggie person in general, but I'll happily eat those. Oh, and artichokes. I love artichokes. Especially in Hollandaise sauce.

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

Gotta give it to the broccoli: nothing beats it with a tiny bit of garlic! Although, I've gotta admit that some asparagus comes close...

[sophia9847.livejournal.com]

3 words: Home Grown Tomatoes.

(I could rattle off a few dozen more, but this time of year, I'm savoring those puppies as often as i can before the chill comes...)

[jblaque.livejournal.com]

I love pretty much all veggies except for raw tomatoes (it's a texture thing), but asparagus, artichokes, green beans, pea pods, corn and okra are among my very favorites.

[madrona.livejournal.com]

asparagus
cucumber
butter lettuce
heirloom tomatoes
mushrooms
onions
avocadoes

[sillyfox.livejournal.com]

Sugar snap peas, hands down. We're lucky if any of them make it in from the garden uneaten.

Otherwise, green peppers, most types of beans, and beets are perennial favorites.

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

First ioff: Broccoli. Hardcore. Made my mother crave it from the womb, love it so much. Granted I'm also the child that had her putting a gun on the counter of a McDonald's at 10:58 and very politely asking the manager WHY exactly they had stopped serving breakfast early. She was 8 months pregnant. With me. She did however, get her pancakes. :)
Asparagus and green beans are only winners, with mushrooms depending on how they are prepped. RAW is always best.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

"Peace will come to the world when the people have enough to eat,"--Momofuku Ando (http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=807)

A shop in Eugene, on the University of Oregon campus, used to make the best roast vegetables. Wish I had their recipe!

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

Hm...I think my go-to these days are tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, stoplight peppers, garlic, perhaps onion, cucumber. Zucchini and various squash get used too.

Right now I'm growing chocolate and red cherry tomatoes, Big Boy, Old German and Cherokee Purple tomatoes (I might be growing some Tropicals as well, but I never labeled those containers, oops), red, Romaine and Kona lettuce (the latter is reluctant mind), yellow crookneck squash, long cucumbers (foot+ long monsters that only size queens could love! The plant itself is a monster), pinto beans that I started from dried beans, Cosmic, Danvers and Nantes fingerling carrots, I'm attempting bunching onions (no luck), the extra-dwarf Bok Choi is utterly ludicrous (it's been in several meals thus far, and only takes about thirty days to grow), and I'm trying for peppers but not having much luck. Tomatilloes are just not going at all, which surprises me a bit considering the location (I may try some directly in the ground, see if the nasty Tucson soil does the trick.) I have broccoli calabrese in an Ace paint bucket (used straight from the store, so clean), but right now that's looking leafy and not the slightest bit broccoli-ish. Mind you, considering that it was started in a) a tiny peat pot and b) an old sour cream container, and transplanted, it's doing right well. Unlike the French Breakfast Radishes, which were transplanted into a bigger pot as they were outgrowing their starter pot...and proceeded to die the death, contrary to common knowledge that socking a peat starter pot directly into new soil avoids transplant trauma. I suppose I could blame the heat...but the pot was much of the time out of direct sun. There's no predicting -- I did the same kind of transplant on my first pinto bean plant, which was growing like a weed...and it shriveled up. The others, started in the same spot and container...zero to sixty in three days (after two days of soaking, mind you.)

Also...basil, oregano, getting some chives to come in though the garlic chives are a bust, failing like a FAILboat Captain on the cilantro, which I understand is pretty much a bastard to make go. I need to expand my herb collection.

Also, on the flower side (which is just something casual, as I'm not big into flowers), I'm getting some White Alyssum to go, and seem to be managing to grow some Mexican Hat (yellow), Cosmos Psyche, English & Painted Daisies, and maybe some Magnolias, though the dog managed to kill the most promising candidates. The Cleome doesn't seem to be looking up, and the plum tree seeds are taking their damn time.

Next up: starting the pitcher plants and the Japanese maple.

[sdelmonte]

I'm not as big on veggies as I should be. Most don't do much for me, and some (like tomatoes) are right out.

I am big, though, on peppers and carrots, and enjoy broccoli, string beans and asparagus. That last one is a recent development. For years I thought I hated it, but it turns out I probably never tried it.

[ladyskada.livejournal.com]

One of my local farms grows not just red radishes, but purple & white ones. If you're a fan of Chinese food (not just the takeaway version), pick up some white radishes & make a pickled radish salad. Mmmm!


1 1/2 pounds daikon radish, peeled
1 bunch red radishes (about 10), trimmed and each cut lengthwise into 6 wedges
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/4 cup rice vinegar (not seasoned)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon very thin matchsticks of peeled ginger
Halve daikon lengthwise, then cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Transfer to a large bowl and toss with radishes and kosher salt. Let stand at room temperature, stirring occasionally, 1 hour.
Drain in a colander (do not rinse) and return to bowl.
Add vinegar, sugar, and ginger, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Transfer to an airtight container and chill, covered, shaking once or twice, at least 12 hours more (to allow flavors to develop).
These can keep if refrigerated for up to 3 weeks

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

Tomatoes have always been my favorite. And now that I've experienced them with basil and mozzarella, it'll be VERY hard to unseat the champion. ;)

When I was younger, my mom remembers that I would diligently pick at my salad to remove every single trace of broccoli from it. I'll eat broccoli now, but only steamed. I still don't enjoy it raw. Perhaps I would if drowned in ranch, but that seems to defeat the purpose.

Other go-tos are zucchini, carrots, white and sweet potatoes, green beans, and raw leafy greens. (Green beans or carrots are especially awesome tossed with some exotic mustards. I've had maple champagne mustard, balsamic mustard, and...I don't think I ever ate the wasabi mustard, but I've been in the same house with it.) I will occasionally throw spinach into a cooked recipe, but in that case I just use the frozen chopped stuff.

The weird one I do NOT like is yellow squash - the one that looks like zucchini. Something about it tastes excessively bitter to me - almost like it's poisonous.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

Corporate monoculture agriculture sucks, and has made humanity significantly more vulnerable to mass starvation and/or food shortages caused by blight (see, for example, what's been happening with Ug99 lately).

I'm never without onions, garlic, tomatoes, cucumber, bell peppers, green peas, and carrot. I really like spinach, daikon, green mango (very much more of a savoury thing than a sweet thing; if we're including tomatoes on this list of "vegetables," green mangoes count), and zucchini. I rarely buy pea shoots, but like them.

I only like cauliflower if it's pureed. Something about the texture makes me think I'm eating a tongue, and I'm not the kind of person who sees deli tongue and thinks, "Ooh, yummy!"

[msgeek.livejournal.com]

Asparagus. 'nuff said.

[shadowofsummer.livejournal.com]

Thank you.