Fruit Vegetables

Appears in

Published 1974

About

The fruits of the vegetable patch include eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squashes.

Eggplant arrived in this country early in the nineteenth century, while tomatoes appeared on our tables late in that century. Even though it arrived late, the tomato quickly made a vital place for itself in our culinary repertoire. The purple eggplant remains a stranger to many American tables, and the white ones are complete foreigners.

Squashes too are neglected. This seems particularly strange since we learned about them from the American Indian. It is even thought that the word “squash” is an abbreviated form of the Narragansett word “askutasquash,” which means uncooked produce. There are practically no French recipes for squash, but this all-American food responds well to French cooking techniques.