Sprouting Off
Here in New Zealand Allyson Gofton was the face of ‘Food in a Minute’ for thirteen years. The programme ‘Food in a Minute’ was born out of a statistic in the mid 1990’s that more than 60% of New Zealand women didn’t know what they would be cooking for dinner that night. It’s an age old problem so nothing new there!
Allyson quit last month, eight months before her contract was due to expire. Unofficially, it was to spend time with her family but officially, there was trouble brewing in paradise. The bottom line seemed to be that script writes and Sponsor demands were proving a little to far-fetched for the wonderfully sensible Gofton.
So when did things start going pear-shaped? According to Gofton, ‘Food in a Minute’ changed when Heinz brought Watties. Reading between the lines, I’d say that the days of allowing the programme-child to play with its food were now a no-no. She said something similar but nicer though I’m more of a commercial realist. All ‘big’ roads in a big company lead to the bottom-line is my take on the matter.
I shouldn’t be surprised but I always am when it comes to ignorance. Following her resignation Gofton said, “I just want Product Managers to get out there in the country towns and small cities, to find out what it is really like to have no extra money to buy semi-dried tomatoes. And I want them to know that people do eat swede and brussel sprouts – some of the vegetables we were not allowed to use as they thought them too polarising ..” I like Allyson Gofton’s no-nonsense approach to food. She knows.
To begin with, ‘polarising ‘ is a very strange choice of word by those in TV-land to use about a vegetable that does more good than harm. Did they mean they just didn’t like it? Who knows! Did the Product Managers for the Show mean they didn’t know how to make sprouts and swede sound sophisticated and appealing in the Sponsor spin cycle?
“It’s a vegetable unjustly disdained by those who know only the tough, bitter, overgrown sorry-state-of-affairs vege available in some supermarkets and green grocers. Straight off the bush it has an almost nutty flavour. It’s the best add-in to homemade vegetable soup I know. Goodness! One of the world’s greatest chefs made pig’s trotter a fine dining experience, his signature dish no less! What planet do these people live on! Oh yes, I remember now, they’ll probably put it down to ‘the tyranny of distance’. Well, everything else is! Whateva!
As a point of fact, it pays not to judge a brussel by its sprout. Brussels sprouts (Brassica oleracea gemmifera) are among the same family that include cabbage, collard greens, broccoli, kale and kohlrabi. They were cultivated in Italy and in Roman times and in some form possibly as early as the 1200s in Belgium. They were first cultivated in large quantities in the form that we’re familiar with today somewhere around 1587 in Belgium, hence the name ‘Brussels Sprouts’ (Brussels being the capital of Belgium). They were introduced into the U.S. in the 1800s and by the 1900s they were being grown commercially in California.
They contain good amounts of Vitamin A and C, Folic Acid and dietary fibre. Moreover, they are believed to protect against colon cancer due in no small part to their containing sinigrin. Research carried out in the east of England has suggested that sinigrin may destroy pre-cancerous cells. It’s also been suggested therefore that sinigrin may prevent cancer of the colon if foods containing it are eaten regularly.
Brussels sprouts are cruciferous, that means that they help our bodies fight cancer and are nutrient dense. Brimming with vitamins these are nutritious super foods! They have been associated with metabolising toxins from smoke and lowering the risk of tobacco-related cancers. Only cruciferous vegetables contain the nutrient isothiocyanates. Isothiocyanates stimulate our bodies to break down potential carcinogens and in doing so they prevent our normal cells from becoming cancerous cells.
Sulforaphane, that’s one of the ‘good guys’ in cruciferous vegetables and indole-3-carbinol are mostly concentrated in cruciferous vegetables and this is linked with reducing the risk of breast, prostate, cervical, colon and other cancers. It’s suggested that it can delay the onset of cancer and reduce the size and growth of tumors. Cruciferous vegetables also help reduce homocysteine levels and so reduce the risk of heart condition diseases. A homocysteine is an amino acid in the blood, the job of an amino acid is to build the proteins in our bodies so we can live.
Swedes on the other hand (Swedish turnip) or yellow turnip (Brassica napobrassica or Brassica napus var. napobrassica) also get a bad rap and is a root vegetable that originated as a cross between the cabbage and the turnip. Its leaves can also be eaten as a leaf vegetable. Historically, its past didn’t do it any flavours. In continental Europe, it acquired a bad reputation during WWI when it became a food of last resort.
In the German Steckrübenwinter (Rutabaga Winter) of 1916–17 large numbers of the population were kept alive on a diet consisting of swedes and little else after grain and potato crop failures had combined with wartime effects. After the war, most people were so tired of swedes that they came to be considered ‘famine food’ and have retained this reputation to the present day. Despite this, I think they’re great in stews and casseroles which are great winter comfort foods. They’re a team-hug vegetable in my books. They make everything seem alright.
It’s a great shame I think that fine dining is being considered the norm rather than the exception. It’s a nice idea in theory but wildly off base in reality, especially if you have a quiver full of children who don’t particularly care that you spoke nicely to the potato to get it to look nice on their plates. Chances are it’ll still be sitting there after they’ve swilled it from the right side of their mouth to the left then gagged and you’ve capitulated and allowed them to regurgitate its sorry mash back onto the plate in front of you. Demoralising? I’ll say!
Dan wasn’t a great fan of peas when he was small so we brokered a deal whereby he promised to eat the number of peas he was old. When he was four I gave him 3 peas just for the reaction. It was immediate, he wanted to know in that very professorial way that he had even then why he only had three peas on his plate and not four! Suitably chastised I found that he became quite happy to forego the year/pea number rule for a ‘happy-heap’ when he got a taste for them.
That’s my rule with children, start small till they get the taste and understand that sometimes they’d just rather eat it raw. My goal was always variety. My children pretty much eat anything as young adults though Mede isn’t so fussed on tomatoes. Gofton is right, while organic is great and I do buy certain items from time to time, she like me, recognises it’s expensive here. I brought organic all the time when I lived in Sydney BUT organic isn’t the be all and end all of feeding our families good nutritious food.
I do think we need to go back and have a look at some of those recipes our Mums and Grandma’s used, refine their cooking processes, get over our own prejudices about some foods (guarantee your child will screw their faces up at a vegetable if you do) and she’ll be right mate! For the record, Brussels Sprouts come in at No. 23 on the N.Z. Vegetable Top 50. Polarising? Quietly confident is what it looks like to me!
