Salsify Steals the Show

For years, I have been building produce displays — I call them altars — at national conferences: Expo East and West, PMA, Google Food Lab and several others. My favorite, though, is when my partner, myself, and a dedicated support team build an altar to honor farmers at the EcoFarm conference. We’ve been bringing organic fruits and vegetables to life in a whole new way in the main hall at the Asilomar Conference Center for over 15 years! Like all creative projects, it starts with a fun idea — then we start drawing, prototyping, and building the idea into existence.

Last year, we created a wine barrel hot tub with cauliflower sheep soaking in blueberry water and chayote squash frogs watching from a nearby log. We’ve done leek and delicata squash corn stalks with taro root gophers and even an enchanted broccoli forest.

This year, we made lemon bees based on a Catherine Dwelleys concept; the bees had radish wings, black bean eyes, and Melissa's salsify stripes, and spent the conference buzzing around real hives with a delicata queen bee and chestnut ants in a garden of crookneck and bell pepper flowers.

In addition to creating something beautiful that brings a smile and a chorus of oohs and ahhs to the conference attendees, we also make sure we find a home for as much of the food post-conference as humanly possible.

This brings me back to salsify. Somehow, in all my years of working in the produce industry, I had never tried it! So I went to my trusted source for awesome recipes and found these two from Melissa’s: spicy salsify with parmesan cheese and salsify fritters.

I've had apple fritters, but I don’t recall having vegetable fritters. If you haven’t had them, they are basically chopped up vegetables tossed together with eggs, garlic, scallions and a touch of flour. You scoop the mixture into a hot pan and wait for the crackling to cue you to flip them over. The veggies soften lightly in the center of the fritters while the exteriors get nice and crunchy. Once you remove them from the pan, give them a quick sprinkling of salt while they’re still hot to ensure the seasoning sticks. Top these with sour cream, salsa, or another favorite topping and enjoy the rewards of discovering a new culinary treat!

I can guarantee this is a delicious way to fritter your time away on a random February Sunday or when you are dreaming up next year's produce altar. Now, I wonder how I can make green onion rain and cabbage leaf umbrellas…