How To Rescue Ugly, Overlooked Fruits And Vegetables From A Sad Fate
It's true, we do feast with our eyes. Who hasn't been drawn to a big plump strawberry or a ruddy round tomato or a crisp green leaf of lettuce? But haven't we all also been disappointed when that handsome strawberry proved tasteless, the tomato's beauty was just skin-deep and that crisp green leaf ... well, crunch isn't everything — look at the bad rap iceberg lettuce gets.
Still, looks draw us. Ugly rarely sells. Too often, perfectly delicious fruits and vegetables get dumped because they're blemished or bruised or split or the wrong size or not the right color or, simply, just not pretty enough in a conventional sense — think celery root, kohlrabi or burdock — so some shoppers pass them by.
"Everything has to be so beautiful," said Mads Refslund, the Danish-born chef and co-author with Tama Matsuoka Wong of "Scraps, Wilt & Weeds: Turning Wasted Food Into Plenty" (Grand Central Life & Style, $35). "Who says ugly food doesn't taste as good as beautiful food. In my world, there's no ugly food. Close your eyes, and you can't tell if it's ugly or beautiful."