Food & Wine
Food Quiz: Do you know this vegetable?
By Kirsten West

During hot summer days we seem to be craving salads and vegetables more than any time of the year. This vegetable is often found in those salads we crave, as it is cultivated in almost every country, except in areas where it’s too cold for any vegetable to grow.

Among the world’s oldest cultivated vegetables, archaeologists have found evidence of it growing around human dwellings near the Thailand-Burma border dating to 7750 BC. That places it pretty close to the dawning millennia of agriculture, and it seems we’ve been intentionally growing it for nearly 10,000 years. Its non-stop voyage continued to India and the Middle East. The Old Testament relates that when the Israelites escaped from Egypt, among the things they lamented leaving behind was this vegetable.

It does like a lot of sunshine, and even the Romans had to work at growing it. Emperor Tiberius planted them in carts and had his slaves wheel the carts around to keep the plants in the sun. The Sun King of France cultivated it in his garden, Potager du Roi, under glass to make sure it was served at his table every day when it was in season.

Most of Europe came to love this vegetable, including Spain. When Columbus set sail for one of his voyages to the New World, he had seeds on board that were planted in what is now Haiti. Here, the history of this vegetable takes an interesting turn. When the first Spanish explorers traveled to North America with some of the seeds, they were readily accepted by the native American Indians. Later, when other European settlers arrived, they thought the vegetable was indigenous to the Americas because at the time of the settlers’ arrival it had not yet reached all of the European countries.

People consume it today in a range of ways; it’s eaten raw, cooked and preserved. It is a favorite diet food, as its calorie content is only 13 per cup. It also can be helpful in reducing skin swellings and sunburns. I have found no aphrodisiac attribute attached to this vegetable, as with many former quiz foods, but a famous restaurant in Chicago uses it to make a very delicious margarita.


Kirsten West is a chef and cooking instructor who has studied Mexican cuisine in most its regions for over 25 years. Her teachers were many wonderful Mexican cooks, including authorities of the cuisine such as Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless. Kirsten is now a full time resident of SMA.

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