Guru of Veggies

While researching her latest cookbook, “Local Flavors,” vegetarian guru Deborah Madison voyaged across seasons and time zones on her way to farm markets from Maine to Hawaii.

Along the way, she learned to appreciate the richness and variety of American regional cuisine, from the delicate okra sold in three sizes in Birmingham, Alabama to the corn, chiles and beans of her own market in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“There are so many surprises, and our food culture is so much more interesting than it is given credit for,” Madison said in a phone interview from her home in Galisteo, New Mexico. “If you were taking the temperature of regional flavors in cooking, the farmers market is one of the best places to see how it looks.”

After “Local Flavors” was reissued in paperback this year, the 62-year-old chef and author hit the road again this spring, stopping in Wine Country early this month to sign copies of her book at the Healdsburg Farmers Market.

The cookbook’s theme - how to connect back to the land and the community, keep farming traditions alive and eat delicious, local food — is more relevant today, 10 years after she first began her research, than ever.

“There has been so much conversation about eating seasonally and locally in the past five years,” Madison noted. “People ask, ‘How do you know what’s in season?’ If you’ve never grown anything or don’t come out of a farming background, that’s a valid question.”

Madison grew up on a dairy farm in Davis, where she learned to appreciate the beauty of plants and farming from her botanist father.

Her brother, Mike Madison, operates Yolo Bulb Farm in Winters and sells his flowers and melons, olive oil and preserves at the Davis Farmers Market. That market didn’t even exist when Madison was growing up in the traditional ag-university town.

“The farmers market movement didn’t really begin until the 1970s, in the Central Valley of California,” she noted. “It started as a means for commercial farmers to offload the produce that wasn’t suitable for the mass market.”

A self-taught cook who first got interested in cooking as a teen, Madison became immersed in vegetarian cuisine while studying at the San Francisco Zen Center in the late 1960s. She refined her techniques at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, then served as founding chef of Greens restaurant in San Francisco, where she became famous for her exciting and visionary vegetarian cooking.

“Greens was revolutionary because it was vegetarian, but it wasn’t doing the San Francisco hippie food,” she said. “It didn’t necessaarily cater to a vegetarian crowd, and the same goes for my books.”

Starting in 1987 with “The Greens Cookbook,” Madison has published a string of popular vegetarian cookbooks, each one packed with sophisticated yet accessible recipes that spotlight fresh fruits and vegetables, simply prepared.

“One of the advantages of cooking wonderful, fresh food at the market is that you don’t have to do a lot to it,” she said.

In “Local Flavors,” Madison mixes stories about farmers and farming with seasonal menus, luscious food photography and 350 inspired recipes. The stories provide a colorful snapshot of the nation’s farm markets at different times of the year.

One of her goals was to steep readers in the concept of seasonality and underscore the fact that seasons are tied irrevocably to place.

“Going to the supermarket, you’re looking at the season of the world, you’re not looking at the season of your place,” she said. “What’s in season is exactly the same as where you live - you can’t have one without the other.”

Madison visited more than 100 farmers markets over the course of five years, using the farm market in Santa Fe as a home base. She was inspired to write the cookbook while serving as the manager of that farm market.

Madison knew the farm market phenomenon was growing across the nation, so she decided to create a portrait of America through the lens of its farmers. What she came up with resembles a crazy quilt of cultures and climates, stitched together by a desire to grow and eat delicious, nourishing food.

“If you stay in one place, you don’t know the Hmong in Stockton, California, or the beautiful medicinal herbs in St. Paul, Minnesota,” she said. “I was really curious about what farmers markets looked like from place to place.”

One of the challenges of writing a national cookbook, Madison said, was organizing it in a way that made sense to every region.

Instead of using a geographical or chronological approach, Madison decided to organize the book by plant families and growing climates. For example, the book begins with the tender greens of spring (lettuce, spinach, chicories and chard), then moves on to produce that ripens in cool weather (asparagus, artichokes, peas and radishes).

“If it’s cool weather produce, it doesn’t matter where you are or what month it is,” she said. “There’s a complex of foods that arrive at the same time.”

There’s also a natural synergy between vegetables that ripen together, Madison noted.

“Look at ratatouille, made with eggplants, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini,” she said. “They’re all hot weather vegetables thriving in the heat of summer.”

Some of her favorite recipes, such as the Platter Salad, can incorporate a wide range of produce taht ripens around the same time.

“A lot of vegetables can be eaten fresh,” she noted. “I love to pick cucumber and radishes and slice them up and make a salad.”

Madison also likes to make summer veggie stews, with carrots, zucchini, potatoes, peppers and shelling beans and herbs stewing in their own juices. These can be served warm or at room temperature so they don’t heat up the room too much.

“I just cut things up in big pieces and leave them whole and use herbs,” she said. “I do a lot with herbs in terms of having them lead a dish in a particular direction.”

Many of her recipes provide a simple framework that allows the dish to shift with the season, depending on what’s available at the market.

“If you are cooking from your season and your location, you can feel pretty confident and relaxed about improvising,” she said. “There are so many wonderful options of fruits and veggies at the market, and they’re all so tempting.”

“Tuna packed in oil or smoked fish - salmon, tuna, albacore, which can often be found at farmers’ markets - makes the salad into a meal,” Madison writes in “Local Flavors.”

June Platter Salad

of Green Beans,

Potatoes and Tuna

Makes 4 to 5 servings

1 sweet onion, thinly sliced into rounds

¼ cup aged red wine vinegar

1 pound small potatoes (any waxy-fleshed variety, such as fingerlings)

— Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1½ pounds green beans, one variety or several

1 bunch little carrots

— Several handfuls salad greens or small head lettuces

— A handful purslane sprigs or big sunflower sprouts

— Several herb sprigs, such as chervil, marjoram, lovage, chives

2 garlic cloves

1 can anchovies, packed in olive oil

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 6-ounce can tuna, packed in oil, drained, or an 8-ounce chunk smoked albacore, thinly sliced

3 tablespoons smallest capers, rinsed

1 bunch radishes

Heat a large pot of water for the vegetables. Toss the onion with 2 tablespoons of the vinegar and set in the refrigerator.

Wash the potatoes, then put them in a small saucepan, cover wth cold water, add 1 teaspoon salt, and bring to a boil. Simmer until the tender when pierced with a knife, about 25 minutes, then drain. Cut the stem ends off the beans, along with the tails if they’re tough. If the carrots are small and tender, you don’t need to peel them. Leave them whole or halve lengthwise with about an inch of the stems. Wash and dry the lettuces and herbs.

Mash the garlic with ½ teaspoon salt and 2 anchovies in a mortar. Whisk in the mustard, the remaining 2 tablespoons vinegar, and the oil, making a thick, emulsified dressing.

When the water boils, season well with salt, then add the beans and cook until tender but still a little firm, 4 to 8 minutes, depending on the varieties. Scoop them out and put them on a towel to dry briefly, then toss them, while still hot, with half of the dressing. Season with salt and pepper and heap them in the center of the platter. Boil the carrots until tender-firm, 4 to 6 minutes or so, then drain and dress lightly.

Arrange the lettuces on the platter. Place the tuna at either end, breaking it up slightly. Halve the potaotes and arrange them on the platter. Spoon the remaining dressing over the lettuce and potatoes and scatter the capers over all, along with the onions, drained of their vinegar. Lay the remaining anchovies over the potatoes. Tuck in the radishes and carrots; add the purslane and herb sprigs. Season everything with pepper. Present the salad arranged. Toss it before serving.

“Taking the feast-or-famine approach, we live on tomato sandwiches from the moment tomatoes appear in the market to the first killing frost,” Madison writes. “Tomatoes of choice are Bradywines, Striped Germans, Carmello and Costoluto Genovese.”

A Big Tomato Sandwich

Makes 4 to 6 servings

1 large (1-pound) loaf ciabatta

— Herb vinaigrette, below

2 or more big, ripe, juicy tomatoes

1 large yellow or red bell pepper, roasted peeled and quartered

4 ounces fresh mozzarella, goat or other favorite cheese, sliced

— Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

HERB VINAIGRETTE:

¼ cup basil leaves

1 tablespoon chopped marjoram

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 small garlic clove, minced

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

4 teaspoons aged red wine vinegar

— Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

To make sandwich: Slice the top third off the loaf of bread and set it aside. Pull out the inside (you can use it to make bread crumbs.

Paint the inside of the bread with some of the dressing, then make layers of sliced tomatoes, pepper and cheese. Bathe each layer with the dressing and season with salt and pepper.

Add the top, press down, then cut into quarters or sixths. This packed well if wrapped tightly.

To make vinaigrette: Finely chop the herbs with the garlic, then add the olive oil. Add the vinegar and ¼ teaspoon salt and season with pepper. Taste and adjust the seasonings if needed.

“This little stew is as pleasant to eat at room temperature as it is warm, so it could travel on a picnic,” Madison writes.

Lazy Corn Stew

with Taxi and

Sun Gold Tomatoes

Makes 4 servings

1 bunch red or green scallions

½ pound yellow summer squash

4 ears sweet corn

3 (about ¾ pound) yellow tomatoes, such as Taxi

1½ tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil

— Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

½ jalapeno chile, seeded and finely diced

— Several sprigs green or purple basil

10 Sun Gold tomatoes

Cut the scallions, including the firm greens, into ½-inch lengths. Cut the squash lengthwise into quarters or sixths, then into 1/3-inch dice. Shuck the corn, then slice off the top two-thirds of the kernels with a sharp knife. Reversing your blade, press out the corn milk.

Peel and seed the yellow tomatoes, squeezing the seeds and juice into a strainer placed over a bowl. Cut the flesh into ½-inch pieces and set aside.

Melt the butter in a wide skillet over medium heat. When bubbling, add the scallions and cook for about 30 seconds. Add the squash, season with ½ teaspoon salt, and stir. Cook for about 2 minutes, then add ¼ cup water.

Lay the tomato pieces over the squash, add the strained juice, and cover with the corn and half the chile. Bury 2 large sprigs of the basil into the vegetables, then cover the skillet. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the Sun Gold tomatoes in half and set them in a bowl. Add 2 tablespoons torn basil leaves and the remaining chile. When the vegetables are finished cooking, taste for salt and season with pepper. Strew the Sun Gold tomatoes over the top and serve.

You can reach Staff Writer Diane Peterson at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com