Asian cucumbers don’t look like regular cucumbers, Chip Planck said. They’re long, curvy and pimply, and when they’re cut up, they’re especially crunchy. Planck and his wife Susan, the owners of Wheatland Vegetable Farm in Purcellville, have been growing Asian cucumbers, Middle Eastern squash and other vegetables for about 20 years, selling the produce at local farmers markets.
Standard-issue vegetables sold well, but their overseas cousins didn’t always fly off the stands.
“We grew Middle Eastern squash 10, 15 years ago, and nobody bought them,” Planck said.
That changed this summer, since Planck began working with the Cooperative Extension offices in Arlington and Loudoun, in an effort to expand the clientele at farmers markets through the World Produce Project, offering eight “ethnic vegetables” — produce used in Asian, African and Latin American cuisines.
The farmers involved, like Planck, have been growing the vegetables for years, offering them for sale along with their other produce at farmers markets. “Some of this stuff has been grown around here, but it’s not used,” said Tom Tyler, organizer of the Arlington Farmers Market for the Arlington Agricultural Extension Office.
Funded by a $9,775 grant from the state’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, the World Produce Project will offer analyses to other Virginia farmers, letting them know what new crops they could profitably plant. The benefit for sellers like the Plancks has largely been a public-relations effort, calling shoppers’ attention to the offerings at participating stands, and offering cooking demonstrations incorporating the ethnic foods.
Rather than drawing in new customers, the vegetables have gotten increased attention from farmers market regulars. “It’s not the ethnic customers who are coming to get these,” said Jason Murray, horticulturist for the Loudoun County Extension Office. “It’s the existing customers.”
They’ve been drawn by increased attention, said Planck. “There are more cosmopolitan groups at all markets. People are looking for spice.”
NEW SPICES AND new tastes come from three vegetables at Haroun Hallack’s Redbud Farm stand at the Columbia Pike Market.
“One is bok choy — I just started selling that yesterday,” Hallack said. “One is the amaranth greens. And the habanero peppers. Hot food is not everybody’s thing.”
Hallack, a native of Sierra Leone, does see African immigrants coming to his stand to buy amaranth greens, broad leaves that can be cooked and served like spinach. “It’s widely consumed in West Africa,” Hallack said. “I would eat it as a side dish, steamed, or stewed with sauce.”
The greens are versatile, said Susan Orlando, owner of Mexicali Blues in Arlington. Orlando’s chef Gloria Melendez offered a cooking demonstration using the vegetables on Aug. 23, using amaranth to make pupusas, Salvadoran stuffed corn patties, and various hot peppers to make salsas. “They were so, so good,” said Orlando.
The prevalence of African, Asian and Latin American populations in the Washington area was the seed of the World Produce Project, said Murray.
“In the DC suburban population, there’s a whole range of ethnicities,” he said. He and Tyler looked at what kind of produce might draw immigrant populations to farmers markets – they concentrated on produce from Africa, Asia and Latin America because those were the biggest ethnic enclaves in the DC suburbs.
But the customers they saw were not brown or black. They were WASCs, said Chip Planck: “white, Anglo-Saxon customers.”
Hallack saw the same clientele buying amaranth. “Everybody comes in for it, but it’s more Caucasians than Africans,” he said. “Ninety percent of my sales are to non-Africans.”
MANY AFRICAN and Asian customers are looking for the vegetables, Murray said. But they’re buying what they need in ethnic groceries, not farmers markets. Hallack also sells his amaranth as a wholesaler to ethnic groceries.
Without those customers buying produce from their native lands, there was a risk that the vegetables in the World Produce Project would fall by the wayside. But while the project hasn’t drawn new customers to farmers markets, it has drawn new customers for the vegetables.
“Once they’re willing to give it a shot, they’re hooked,” said Murray. “Once people try different cucumbers, they don’t want to go back to buying grocery store cucumbers.”
That’s how Planck draws new customers in the market place: offering taste tests of varieties like Middle Eastern cucumbers. “They’re small, very crisp but tender at the same time,” said Planck.
He also offers cooking tips – mostly, to treat new produce like old produce, and just eat it. “Middle Eastern squash, we treat like any old summer squash,” said Planck. “We slice and lightly steam it, serve it with cheese and a little butter. The Middle Eastern cucumbers are superior salad cucumbers, so when we get a chance, that’s what we chop.”
Any new vegetables can be daunting at first, said Orlando. “All these foods are becoming accessible, but you have to have an in,” a first look or first taste, she said.
But there’s still an ethnic market for ethnic foods. “Annandale has a lot of Middle Eastern customers,” said Planck,” so we sell a lot of Middle Eastern squash there. Our customers scoop it out, mix it with lamb meat and stuff it back in.”