Amish Veggies

…… far superior to any others I have found so far. We visited the farmers market near the farm last Saturday. I found that prices were just this side of cheaper in general at the market whereas the supermarket is expensive up there (and the other option was Walmart which my family dragged me into and I found to be just as expensive as city supermarkets as well, so where is that price war thing they do?).

We bought kohlrabi, something that never appealed to me until then. The kohlrabi in question was huge, nearly the size of a grapefruit, with firm shiny skin. I couldn’t resist. I asked how its prepared. The man told me, “We peel it and cut it into strips and eat it raw”.

I also got some sugar snap beans (I think that’s the name) but in the process, apparantly mixed up my batch with shelling peas. The man stopped me. The price was the same so that wasn’t it. He asked me if I wanted to shell or eat the skin? Eat it of course. He then went into my basket and picked out identical looking shelling peas from my batch. I was astounded and asked him how he could tell. He said simply, “We’re used to it”. I felt idiotic but on closer inspection, the shelling peas are flatter. I am sure that he thought I had fallen to  earth from Mars the night before.

I will say that the taste of both vegetables were amazing. Clearly picked fresh. How do they do it? I am going to find out. There must be “farm like the Amish” books out there.

The Amish intimidated me at first. Not because of them but because of me. I just don’t know if there is any special etiquette I should follow in their presence. Plain ignorance on my part, but I decided to just be nice. Not so hard. They are a good deal more friendly on their part.

We are known to be strangers in general so most of the population tries to meet our eyes to give a welcome. We are still going on “eyes forward, look for prey” city siting.People are curious. Amish included. Some are shy, but nobody is rude.

The sherif drove by with his sirens on one day and despite being enroute to an emergency (turned out to be a bad motorcycle accident down the road and not a break in as we supposed), he waved. People wave all the time as they drive past us, tractor, cart  or passenger, doesn’t matter. Garry, my husband, waves back just right, on time. I haven’t gotten the hang of the timing yet.When we drive along, farmers in their fields stop to wave to us as well. I can’t believe I am saying this, but its actually fun.

Back to the vegetables, we stopped at a large farm vegetable stand on the way home and they had kohlrabi the size of lemons and with dull wimpy skin for a higher price. No wonder I was never intrigued by this root vegetable. At the grocery store yesterday, here in the city, I found more and it looked even worse.No wonder we are such creatures of habit when it comes to food. If it doesn’t look good, nobody will try it. My children are vegetable racists. They will eat those they are familiar with but don’t venture willingly into color or class, especially not dirty root veggies that we find here. They devoured the kohlrabi up at the farm.