Episode 25: Full of Pith and Vinegar (with Kate Lebo)
The poet and piemaker Kate Lebo joins us to help discuss her book "The Book of Difficult Fruit," which inspired this episode! We meddle with some medlars and try to make some prickly pears less prickly. Don’t take your pommes for granted!
Food ideas discussed in this episode:
The Best Things We’ve Eaten Recently:
After much practice, Hrishi is an Itty Bitty Teenie Tiny Tahini Samini Sardini Panini Machini. His most recent iteration legit sounds delicious!
For a Monday Dinner Rosh Hashanah Spectacular, Samin had Sarah’s delicious Challah and an Invisible Apple Cake—Smitten Kitchen has a good recipe.
PSA: Don’t do criminal things to fruits in pies, please! Treat them with love and care and respect. Not too much starch, no over cooking, please!
Medlars:
Samin and Hrishi got to speak with the marvelous Kate Lebo about medlars and The Book of Difficult Fruit. The most special kind of food writer; she’s the poet who’s coming to food rather than the food writer trying to come to poetry. Swoon.
Some take-aways from Kate:
The medlar inspired Kate to write The Book of Difficult Fruit.
Medlars look like giant rosehips. You are not supposed to pick them until after the first frost. They have to be bletted to become edible.
Medlar jelly is where it’s at.
Lemon Skeletons!
Dear Steve in Australia, as well as Medlar Advocate, you are officially the Medlar Tester from here on out! Here’s Kate’s work-in-progress Medlar Tart with Honeyed Quince and Vanilla Chèvre recipe. Please report back.
Pomegranate Ideas:
We know, pomegranates are a lot of work! They’ve held a special place in both Hrishi’s and Samin’s childhood homes. If you don’t have Hrishi’s mom’s superpowers, and you’d like some instructions on taking pomegranates apart (or bonking, if you will), please check this out.
In Samin’s childhood home, pomegranate arils were eaten by the spoonful, and also specifically they were eaten with salt. The salt balances the tartness. (Fruits that Hrishi puts salt on: apples, peaches, nectarines–watermelon is good too!)
To dovetail Pomegranate Ideas and Pomegranate Molasses Ideas check out the most famous Persian dish involving Pomegranate Molasses–Fesenjan –it’s like the Persian version of mole.
PSA #2: One of the greatest acts of love is preparing fruit for someone.
Prickly Pear Ideas:
Samin looooves Mexican juice culture, it’s everywhere you go there! This is where she first experienced prickly pear (called Tuna in Mexico) juice. Delight!
In Italian it’s called Fichi d’India. In Sicily it’s sometimes jam, sometimes juice or you just eat it by gumming it so that you eat the fruit without cracking the seeds and then you just swallow them.
Another thing to consider: making fruit vinegar. It’s simpler to make and requires less processing than jam. You have to peel it, put it into a food processor, throw it in a jar, and add a live mother from another vinegar. Keep it in a warm place until it ferments.
Amalia will write up some fruit vinegar notes. After she’s done dying from all the Hrishi puns in this episode.
Fig Leaf Ideas:
It cannot be said enough, Fig Leaves Are Wonderful!
Most commonly used as a wrapper for grilling or baking a fish, they impart a beautiful heady, coconutty aroma that perfumes the fish or scallops cooked inside.
PSA #3: Don’t eat the fig leaf, it’s a lot of fiber, mmkay?
You can also wrap them around goat cheese or ricotta to grill, or you can lay them into a roasting dish and then roast figs on them, or you can also make fig leaf vinegar like Chris Crawford of Tart Vinegar. (See vinegar notes above or OR just buy hers when she has it).
Roast, or grill them and then steep them in cream to make a custard, panna cotta, ice cream base, or just whipped cream. Heaven!
Julia Sherman grilled or toasted them and ground them into a powder and mixed it with salt and used it to season a chicken. Minds blown!
Lemon and Lime leaf ideas! (More leaves!):
In the tradition of rosemary skewers for kabobs, in Sicily Samin had Swordfish kabobs on skewers of citrus twigs and there would be a leaf between each piece of fruit. Brilliant! We think this would also work with Halloumi or perhaps even mushrooms.
Makrut lime leaves are used in Southeast Asian cooking, but If we can’t get those then we will use another lime leaf.
Not mentioned, but fig leaves and lime leaves are both good for perfuming the water when you steam couscous.
Frozen Treat Bonus Section:
Prickly pear sorbet or granita
Fig leaf flavored ice cream base with balsamic roasted figs mixed in
Pomegranate sorbet or granita
Hrishi Recommends this Indian ice cream company called Naturals that has lots of flavors made with Indian fruits you may not have met before.
Illustration by Mamie Rheingold