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Dear Friends,
This month we have a guest here on the Kitchen Table Gazette: Andy Griffin, who, along with his wife Julia, farms delicious organic produce in Watsonville, California. Andy is a terrific writer as well as a dedicated farmer. I'm pleased he has permitted me to share his vision with you.
Yours In health,
Mollie
In Praise of Purple
Purple Prose by Andy Griffin
Mariquita Farm
Organically Grown Vegetables, Berries and Herbs
P.O. Box 2065 Watsonville, CA 95077
(831)761-3226
www.mariquita.com
 In every herd of fluffy white sheep there's always a black one to break
up the monotony. The green grasses and herbs that the sheep graze upon
manifest this same whimsical tendency of nature to honor her rules by
giving birth to exceptions. For many plant species there are both
dominant green forms and less frequently encountered purple or red
types. Over the centuries gardeners have been led by their eyes to
select out and propagate the most colorful freaks. Today the color
hungry among us can choose to graze on purple artichokes, purple
asparagus, purple string beans, purple broccoli, even purple basil.
The most widespread of any of these black sheep of the vegetable
kingdom are purple cabbages which have come to be almost as common in
supermarket display cases as their green cousins. But don't worry; this
trend has its limits. For years I've dabbled in growing and selling a
wide mix of purple produce and I can tell you first hand that purple
food has problems that challenge any marketing effort. Everyone needs
to eat to survive, but not everyone needs to eat purple food. Some
people probably wouldn't swallow a mouthful of purple if it was their
last meal on earth; I'm thinking here of kids, cooks, and communists.
While its dangerous to generalize about humanity, experience has taught
me that these three groups in particular have issues with purple food
that invite speculation.
 When it comes to food, kids can be the most conservative consumers of
all. Maybe your kids will eat purple vegetables but mine certainly
won't. I made them purple mashed potatoes once with tender, purple
potatoes freshly dug for the occasion thinking that they would relish
the novelty. The mashed potatoes had a violet color and a tantalizing,
earthy aroma. My kids' faces were green with panic at the thought of
even stirring their food with a fork. This fear is a natural defense
mechanism, I suppose, a child's way of avoiding poison. Considering
that these same kids would fight over an old dirty potato chip that's
spent a week on the floor, this survival instinct is ironic.
Some kids never grow up. When I sold at the farmer's market in San
Jose I was always struck by the number of folks who would react with
alarm to any unusual vegetables on my tables. "What's that?" they would
bark, their finger pointing unsteadily at a purple broccoli. These were
middle class people, middle aged, and white to the bone; my tribe if
I've ever had one. I would pitch in with some illuminating observations
to answer their concerns, but after hearing me rave away for five
minutes they'd say, "Well I never heard of it." Their whole posture was
defensive, as though a bite of purple broccoli might cause them to break
out in paisley colored hives, start speaking with a French accent, or
suddenly realize they're gay.
Cooks have conflicting attitudes towards purple food. One of the
biggest challenges in pleasing a cook is to cultivate an empathetic
bedside routine to deal with their disappointments when their highest
hopes aren't realized. A would be chef, perhaps feeling close for the
moment to the spirit of Martha within, will purchase purple string
beans thinking to pair them up with green and yellow string beans for a
dazzling display of culinary prowess. They despair when the purple
beans turn green at the first touch of heat and they watch their concept
go up in steam.
 Purple varieties of vegetables don't always taste the same as their
green relatives. Purple artichokes have a stronger flavor than their
green cousins, wilder with a more pronounced bitterness, and they are
smaller too, and spinier. I like them; some people don't. Last year a
woman complained that the purple basil I was growing tasted "metallic."
She was right. This year I've switched to a variety of basil called Red
Rubin which is just as aromatic and sweet as its green Genovese twin.
Close your eyes and you couldn't tell the two basils apart, but open
your eyes and WOW does that purple ever look cool in a sungold tomato
salad.
The most difficult customers to sell on purple food have turned out to
be communists. I used to run into some real hardliners over at the
Berkeley Farmer's Market and their reaction to unusual vegetable
varieties bordered at times on overt hostility. "Designer vegetables
for yuppie scum!" they would rant. I, the grower, was implicated in the
shame they heaped on the yuppies for chowing down on color, while
millions starve. This attitude, coming as it did from avowed communist
party members has always puzzled me. If you're going to endorse a
godless, materialistic ideology, why get so wrapped up in the nuances of
class consciousness that you forget to enjoy the endless variety of
color, fragrance, and flavor that the material world offers? If you are
going to denounce religion as an opiate of the masses why cling so
dearly to a puritanical rejection of luxury? I'm sure there are plenty
of Italian communists who have learned to spice up the revolution with
purple basil. Lighten up folks. Taste the purple!
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