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The Market:
Old Oakland Farmers Market
9th Street between Broadway and Clay
Fridays, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
(510) 745-7100
Marketgoer:
Victoria Slind-Flor
This market is one block from
Oakland
’s
Chinatown
, and many of the vendors specialize in herbs, greens and other
vegetables used in Asian cooking. Asian greens, most selling for
$.50 a bunch, included the usual array of bok choys, broccolis and
mustards as well as more exotic fare such as Tham Lung (Ivy gourd)
and Bai Prik Ma (a pointed leaf that is is eaten raw). Taro stems,
and purple yams were also for sale. One vendor from Coachella
brought green Jewel of Basra dates on the stems, and was selling
them for $2.50 a pound. He said many Asian customers prefer their
dates that way, tart and crunchy. Duck eggs, both fresh and the
pink-dyed salted version were available for sale.
Beets and Eggplants
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What I Bought:
Hachiya Persimmons and Pomegranates
| Two Girls Farm from
Reedley
,
Calif., had a good deal on two quintessential fall fruits.
They were selling bright orange hachiya persimmons
at three for $1 and small pomegranates at five for
$2. There also were pale orange fuyu persimmons in the
market today, at $1.50 per pound.
The pointed hachiyas need to ripen to
softness in order to be sweet. Then I’ll put them in the
freezer and eat them with a spoon. Small pomegranates I will
eat out of hand, and add to salads. |
How to
Cut Open a Pomegranate
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Price: $1 for three hachiya persimmons
$2 for five small pomegranates
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Tomatoes, Prosperosa Eggplant and a Bell
Pepper
I will combine these round,
baseball-sized eggplants (Solanum melongena, var. prosperosa)
with heirloom tomatoes to make a Mediterranean vegetarian
entrée, called Eggplant
in Fans.
Price: $1/lb. for tomatoes
$.75-$3/lb. for eggplant, depending on variety and condition
$1.50/lb. for peppers
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Okra I
will "smother" this fresh, crisp okra
Louisiana-style by cooking it slowly in a lidded container
with tomatoes and bell pepper.
Price: $1/lb.
Hyacinth Beans
These
beans are Dolichos
lablab, purpureus, commonly known as hyacinth
beans. They seem to come in purple, green,
and green edged with purple. Unlike
almost every other kind of bean, these grow on a vine that
is perennial here in
California
. It's actually widely grown for its ornamental virtues
and because its fragrant flowers attract hummingbirds. There's
much conflicting
information in the literature about them. Some say the
raw pods are poisonous and carcinogenic. Others say the
mature beans are carcinogenic and poisonous but may be
eaten if they are boiled in several different changes of
water. The allegedly poisonous element is a cyanogenic
glycoside. Adherents
of the differing views on their nutritional attributes
predictably have different notions about how they should
be prepared for human consumption. Some people say they
eat the pods raw. Others say they stir-fry or steam them.
Others use them as a veggie in curry, or cook them for a
long time. Others use them only for fodder or green
manure. The Filipino people I
talked to in the market seemed very thrilled to see them
and were buying them hand over fist as if the beans were a
rare treat. They said they like to steam them with
pumpkin. Hmmm.
Price: $2/lb.
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Ngo Om (Rice Paddy Herb)
According
to Andrea Quynhgiao Nguyen, a writer and cooking
teacher based in Santa Cruz, California, this herb (Limnophila
aromatica) is used in Vietnamese cooking to impart a
citrusy, cuminy edge to soups and other dishes. She has
experimented with other ways to put it to use, and has
described her experiments in her blog, Viet
World Kitchen.
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