The transformation of spinach
The other day I made a favorite dish: chickpeas with spinach, onions, garlic, and tomato paste. As I cooked it, I mused on how easy it’s become.
First, the canned chickpeas. Yeah, the soaked-and-then-simmered ones that you do yourself are better, but who has the time? And it’s hardly necessary; the canned ones (Goya, Progresso, what-have-you) are awfully good and tremendously simple.
But it’s the spinach that really brings a smile to my lips. Those of you of a certain age, like me, can remember what spinach used to be like. Big old leaves with fat tough stems that had to be picked over. And above all, the grit, ah the grit!
Spinach grit was true grit. A fine sandy gravel pervaded the whole shebang. Washing was the answer, but what was required was no ordinary washing. Several soakings and rinsings only got the biggest chunks; somehow a fine dusting always remained to set the teeth on edge.
As for drying the spinach (necessary for certain recipes), in those pre-salad-spinner days that task required some doing, too, and lots and lots of paper towels. And before there were paper towels, what did people do?
My guess is that they didn’t eat spinach salad. But now we can, with ease—and with the help of those packages of pre-washed, pre-spun, pre-everything-but-eaten, tender and lovely baby spinach leaves.
If you need a fix of teeth-grinding grit, try leeks – takes about 4 hours to get those clean.
I like the bags of prewashed spinach ok, but you still have to pick through them and look for critters, or just yucky slimy leaves.
Spinach is my favorite vegetable.
I think it is why I’m conservative! 🙂
Spinach is what you eat when collard and turnip greens aren’t available. Hehe
I love fresh spinach — and I never had any particular problem washing it fresh, when I bought it in the street market in Athens. I just soaked it in a huge sink-full of water, and sloshed it around a bit to let all the grit wash off and sink to the bottom. Drain, and repeat, and dry in a salad-spinner.
In fact, the only problem I ever had, buying it then, was when I got mixed up in my minimal Greek and instead of getting half a kilo of spinach, (miso kilo or half a pound) I asked for dio kilo … four pounds. Do you have any idea how big a bag four pounds of fresh spinach makes? It’s about the size of a small pillow.
Fortunately, I had an obligation the next day at a church pot-luck, and I made a vat of fresh spinach salad. (Crumbled bits of bacon, walnuts, grated Parmesan and a balsamic-vinegar and olive-oil dressing.) Problem solved.
I too am one of the spinach loving minority. In my case, I attribute this to the brain warping effects of my childhood watching of Popeye cartoons.
Not a big greens fan of any kind, spinach being on of the worse ones. However my father loves it and it gets cooked from time to time by me.
Like posted above – fill the sink with water and slosh it around in it for a while. Since I didn’t have a salad spinner I would grasp a small handful and fling my arm around and throw the water all around the kitchen – it water so who cares?
It also seems to work for leeks (one that, as mentioned above doesn’t have a nice non-sandy way to purchase) and romaine lettuce (which since the head is usually halved will not properly go into the salad spinner).
Sometimes I think people are too careful in their kitchens – it is a working are and somethings are OK. Nor does it mean any extra cleanup if done properly. Whilst you do not want to fling your steaks dry in that manner nothing wrong with well washed greens.
Raw spinach, for salads or as a ‘lettuce’ for sandwiches, is great. Cooked spinach not so much.
Chard beats spinach for sweetness and is easier to rinse.
The magic word behind the grit-free spinach is HYDROPONICS.
That technique is also responsible for a more extended season.
I love spinach — especially baby spinach, lightly sauteed just until it begins to wilt, in good olive oil and garlic. Yum.
Also spinach-related is one of the best New Yorker cartoons ever, back when the New Yorker was still worth reading for the cartoons:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/spinach.JPG
Not spinach-related at all, but I must comment on it or I’ll burst, is the worst-written sentence I have ever seen in the New York Times (and that’s saying quite a lot) currently gracing the online front page.:
“Justice Sonia Sotomayor has displayed a quality that is alert to the humanity of people in Supreme Court cases.”
I get my greens via turnip greens and collards. They go very well with tomatoes, and for those who eat it, ham. The Victory Garden cookbook has a recipe for ham stuffed with collards that is to die for.
Mrs. Whatsit:
I puked, too, on reading that. It is the NYT way of reassuring libs that Sonia lied when she told the Senate, “We don’t apply feelings to facts.” Story reads further, “A quality-call it what you will-“