The last of summer's bounty
By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, October 20, 2007 in The Washington Post
This time of year I'm like the women in Jean-François Millet's painting "The Gleaners," bent over the mown fields in their kerchiefs and long skirts, gathering scraps of leftover grain. It's completely irrational. My garden is still bursting with fresh crops for fall: spinach, kale, leeks and a dozen or so others. Winter squash is just starting to cure in the shed, and I haven't even dug the root crops yet. But somehow the oncoming winter brings out the frugal peasant in me, and I'm gripped with the urge to salvage what is left of summer's bounty.
The last of the unpicked snap beans have seeds swelling in their pods. Better not waste them. I spend an hour shelling them and another gathering the last of the old corn ears, stripping them of their kernels and adding them to the beans for succotash. There's some over-the-hill fennel, too woody for salads but a perfectly good candidate for long, slow braising.
A row of broccoli plants and another of zucchini are ready to be yanked out and composted. But shouldn't I leave them a week longer to see if they'll pump out a few more stir-fries' worth of food? I stroll through the garden, assessing what is left. I want one more dish of fried squash blossoms, one more platter of tomato salad before frost threatens. "Look, it's fall," I tell myself. "Get over it."
Then I spot the bolted lettuce. Some of the leafy towers are nearly three feet tall. Where I've harvested heads, the stems have regrown with multiple spires, like Notre Dame. Ready to rip them out, I remember something I read about once on a favorite Web site called L'Atelier Vert ( http://www.frenchgardening.com). Although the leaves of bolted lettuce are so bitter only the starving would eat them, the stems are said to be quite tasty. Curious, I cut some, strip them of their leaves and bring them indoors. Not even bothering to peel them, I cut them all into half-inch pieces on the diagonal. I would expect them to be tough, but they are succulent and easy to slice.
I saute them on low heat for 20 minutes or so in French walnut oil. They begin to exude the milky sap that gives lettuce its botanical name ( Latuca), then they slowly caramelize until they are crisp. I heap them onto a plate with coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper. They are delectable, more sweet than bitter, but with a little bite. If I leave the roots in the ground, maybe they will sprout a few more meals like this one before the season finally comes to an end.
Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Image: "Les Glaneuses" by Jean-François Millet, 1857.
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