Friends, not food

I'm not one to criticize Community Supported Agriculture, which supports small farms by having members pay upfront for fruit and vegetables to be delivered later. And I love getting a crate of whatever they happen to be harvesting this year. But every once in a while, they try to pawn something off as a crop that just isn't.

This week it was Sweet Potato Leaves. Really? Does anybody genuinely think that sweet potato leaves are food? If they were, they would have their own name and not be called the leaves of something that is food.

Earlier this year we got something called garlic scapes, which I think are some vestigial part of the garlic plant (okay, I made that up) and taste like a combination of scallions and garlic, without any of the good flavor notes. I've been to a farmer's market where they sell spreads and pesto made with garlic scapes and they are universally awful. The other thing we got were pea shoots. Again, it's a by-product of growing peas, not its own thing.

The farmers try to trick you into taking this stuff by including recipes using them and treating them as exotic ingredients. But ultimately, they are the kinds of things that farmers probably eat when there's absolutely nothing else to eat and that they would never even try to sell because nobody would ever buy them.

Hope we get some actual sweet potatoes soon.