Fusion of food and garden mark Valley harvest

The history of man is a history of food. As long as we have grown or harvested our own food, we have sought after delectable ways of preparing it. Think of the buzz that must have flown across the tundra when fire was first used to prepare mastodon on a spit! My bet is that the buzz traveled faster than the hairy creature itself! Kingdoms have been won and lost over the growing and the controlling of crops. Continents have been shaped, peoples have disappeared from the face of the earth forever, and big business has thrived, all in the name of food.

What humans put into their mouths really is a big deal. Millions read about it and everyone talks about it. The extrapolation from food to the earth is obvious to the gardener and the farmer, but to much of the rest of the world food comes from a grocery store. The fact is, if we don’t grow food we don’t eat and the better we do at growing, the better our food will taste. Victoria Wise, gardener, garden writer and food writer, says it well. “Good food comes from good growing. Good growing comes from loving the earth and good dishes come from tending your pot as you tend your plot.”

Today we don’t spend a lot of time following hairy mammoths and mastodons around musing over the best roasting method, but we do have the Internet and there’s plenty of opportunity to get lost there. A single word search will bring up literally thousands of recipes for any given ingredient (well, maybe not mastodon), so how are we to choose? For me, the old-fashioned question “How did you make this?” works well. Sharing is the key to good food. All of us know someone who can knock our socks off with one dish or another. The sharing of these specialties fill tens of thousands of cookbooks and keep gardeners growing ever more interesting crops to later try out in the kitchen.

While we tend to shudder at the pending winter, fall is a fabulous time to share our gardens bounties and our knowledge. Whatever we have must be brought in now or it turns into moose fodder in the snow. Do you scratch your head year after year wondering what to do with all those green tomatoes still in the, now-cold, greenhouse? What about the barrels of zucchini still needing to be gathered?

Why not consider making relish? It is easy to create and extremely versatile to use in the kitchen. The below recipes will each make one pint to put in the fridge and 1/2 pint to eat immediately. If you put up preserves, canned relish will be good for at least a year.

Fresh Zucchini Relish

Put all of the following ingredients into a soup pot and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce the heat and simmer for about two hours or until the relish has been reduced to half its original amount. Once done, put into keeping jars and refrigerate, or can. It is excellent with moose or red salmon! A perfect blend of hot, sweet and spicy.

4 c fresh zucchini cubed but not peeled

3 medium tomatoes, chopped into small chunks

1 small onion chopped small

1 jalapeno chopped small

1/2 T ground cloves

1/2 T ground nutmeg

1/2 T ground coriander

1 t crushed red pepper

1 t kosher salt

1/4 cup parsley, chopped small

1 c raw sugar

1/2 c cider vinegar

Now, for all those green tomatoes still on the vine. Surely they aren’t going to ripen, so why not use them now?

Green Tomato Relish

Place the following ingredients in a bowl and cover with water. Let the mixture sit overnight. The next day, drain and rinse thoroughly.

1/2 pound green tomatoes, chopped small

1/4 pound yellow onions, chopped fine

1/4 pound assorted color bell peppers, chopped

1 small jalapeno, chopped small

1 T kosher salt

On the day of final preparation combine the following ingredients into a small soup pot and bring to a boil.

1/2 c raw sugar

1/2 c cider vinegar

1/2 t turmeric

1/2 t Hungarian paprika

1 T pre-purchased pickling spices

Once at a boil, add the vegetable mixture, now drained, and return to a boil. Immediately remove and place in keeping jars or can.

Think of next spring when you stroll out to the greenhouse and are not, yet again, greeted with black, withered, frozen fruit on dead vines. Perfect!

Sally Koppenberg is a garden and food designer. She is the owner of Stonehill Gardens and The Red Beet, nursery and catering companies specializing in Alaska Grown foods, trees, shrubs, perennials and native plants. Contact her at stonehill@gci.net.