Susan Durisek’s blog

Brussels Sprouts  . . . Do you know where your vegetables are grown?  I mean, what field, city, state, country, even continent? If you shop at a grocery store, sometimes there are labels providing that information, sometimes not.  Unless the grocery stockers remember what they read on the boxes, or think it’s worth mentioning on the signs, it’s really difficult to find ferret out somebody who has access to that information.  I wouldn’t advise trying to ask during the Thanksgiving rush, when all available employees are working the check-out lines or desperately searching for pumpkin at a reasonable price.  Second question: do you know what your vegetables looked like while they were growing?  If you look at the bags of peeled mini-carrot chunks so popular lately, can you imagine those bits as underground roots, with a handle of feathery green foliage sticking up above-ground, waiting to be yanked?  I know it may be shocking, but no, folks, the carrots did not grow in perfectly washed and peeled lozenges; at one time they were even covered with soil.   More questions: how long ago were your veggies picked? Who picked and packed them, and did they get a fair wage?  What did the growing field and cultivation methods look like?  What route did they take to get to you, and at what cost?  Did they travel by car, truck, train, plane? 

Today’s appreciative tribute goes to the genius who decided to market Brussles sprouts, still on the stalk.  Striking, fun, educational, engaging and maybe even tasting better, this idea brings us consumers closer to the farm.  Sure, they’ve chopped off the leaves and roots, but having the stalk is an eye-opening revelation about Brussel sprout morphology.  Of course, you could also be growing some cool-weather cole crops in your own garden right now, like cabbage, kale, broccoli and the aforementioned Brussels sprouts, and be picking them just feet from your own kitchen door.  Maybe next year?  Meanwhile, learn how and where your food is produced, and study up on some grass-roots gardening info so that next year, you’ll have some Brussels sprout stalks of your own.