Rainbows of summer and nutrition, or, how much I hate chard--by heather

When eating locally and seasonally, one is at the mercy of what nature provides (duh). Some months bring delicious treats like tender asparagus, crisp apples, or all the cherries you can fit in your mouth at once (9, including pits). In the Northwest in early June, nature provides chard. Lots and lots of chard.

My introduction to chard took place just about a year ago, after one of our early trips to the farm. Morgan had been talking about its incredible nutritional properties for weeks and I was excited to try this amazing superfood. Honestly, I also get a little kick out of liking foods that are not well known/widely enjoyed. I felt the same way about hummus 10 years ago. I'm a little pretentious, sue me. As we walked down the rows of lettuces, I kept my eyes peeled for chard. I had no idea what it looked like, but with how much I had hyped it in my head, I think I was expected a sparkly halo or something. I was not too far off. My first glimpse of rainbow chard was like that scene in Willy Wonka when they go into the room with the candy landscape. It looked like a row of popsicles--lemon yellow, strawberry pink, orange...orange. Popsicles topped with huge dark leaves, of course, but dessert none the less. I promptly picked a huge bunch and almost tapdanced with excitement.

We went back to Morgan's and decided to make lasagna. This was during our really brief stint of making a huge batch of food together and then splitting it up for our respective families for the week. We did this exactly twice--the next time, we almost killed ourselves via potato overload, but that's a story for another post. Anyway, lasagna. Morgan suggested we put chard in it and wanted to know if I thought it would be good. It was at this point I actually asked what chard tasted like. "Like, a more spinach-y spinach". Hey, I like spinach! Into the lasagna mix it went, teeny tiny, almost undetectable threads. I couldn't taste it at all. VEGETABLE VICTORY WILL BE MINE, I thought. I will eat bowls of chard and brown rice and my skin will glow and I will live to be 125 and do yoga everyday. It was pretty much all settled.

Later that week, I was bored, hungry, and still had a whole mess o' chard in the fridge. Feelin creative, I decided on a saute of chard seasoned with apple cider vinegar, honey, and pepper flakes served over a bed of parmesan polenta. It seemed like a really good idea. Vinegar to brighten the flavor, sweet to compensate for some of the earthiness, pepper for spice, and parmesan for salt. It took probably 25 minutes, all told. A substantial amount of time when you're starving. But I knew it would be worth it. I took my steaming plate of health and culinary magnificence to the couch and took a huge, hopeful bite...

...and almost threw up. You see, chard tastes like dirt. By "more spinach-y spinach", Morgan clearly meant "spinach that has been buried in the dirt for months so as to actually be more dirt than vegetable." So what sat on my plate was essentially bright, sweet, spicy, salty dirt. Over a bed of polenta. I gave it a few more tries, reasoning with myself that my tastebuds just weren't used to such a unique taste. Eventually though, I scraped all the chard off the polenta, blotted the top with a paper towel to get rid of any lingering taste, and ate a stupid boring dinner.

I'm not sure why I was so surprised--I don't like beets, I don't like arugula, I don't even really like spinach (I like baby spinach raw, but cooked spinach has a distinctly, uh, dirty taste). That earthy flavor just doesn't work for me.

But I really wish it did. I had chard one other time that summer, in a stir fry made by my boyfriend's mother. All the mushrooms, soy sauce and garlic almost masked the "bowl of soil" flavor, and I was able to eat it without making a horrible face, but I'm not sure it will ever be something I eat without trepidation and a nose plug.

However, I couldn't resist yesterday and now am the proud owner of a bunch of chard. I guess I'm the opposite of most people who refuse to try something again after not liking it once--I continue to try things I know I don't like, in the hopes that maybe I was wrong.