By the time I left, I was fifty-five dollars poorer but had a rich bounty of fresh local veggies, baked goods, and eggs tucked away in the bags swinging from the stroller handles. And like all of my trips to the market, I came home with veggies that I have never cooked with before and ideas about others that I would like to pick up on my next visit.
As I was touring the various booths, I came across an ingredient that I have seen mentioned in many recipes before but which I had never actually seen in real life before--broccoli rabe. And I knew for a fact that I had two recipes at home that I was dying to try that called for this special ingredient. I quickly snapped up two bunches for $4.00 and left the market excited to get cooking. I expected to fall in love with broccoli rabe given that I am a broccoli lover, and who can't fall in love with the looks of broccoli rabe--its leafy greens and delicate broccoli-like buds.
So today, I pulled out my cookbook and made a dish I was sure would be a hit with the family--Rigatoni with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe. The photo in the cookbook looked absolutely mouthwatering--pink pork sausage, creamy noodles, and vibrant green broccoli rabe. Yummy, right?
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| The innocent looking Rigatoni with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe moments before consumption. |
Oh, so WRONG!
As I took my first bite, my tongue was assailed with an intense bitterness. And I'm not talking about a little bit of bitterness. Take the bitterness of a teenage girl who sees her best friend, the friend whom she has shared her deepest secrets and desires, flirting with her long-time crush and then multiple it times ten. Maybe twenty. That was what blasted my taste buds. And I am not a picky eater, nor a person who away from foods that are a bit on the bitter side.
"Wow!" I exclaimed as I put down my fork. I looked at my husband, who was taking care of our two-month-old son, and then at my daughter who was busy picking at her salad, neither of which had taken a bite of the pasta yet. "You guys aren't going to like this."
"Well, we'll just have to see," Corey said. He was completely unaware that my tongue had just been completely offended by my last bite.
"No," I continued, "you guys aren't going to like this. It's bitter. Really bitter."
He later confirmed my original assessment. "It didn't hit me at first, but after three seconds in my mouth, it was like being hit by a freight train." Yeah, a freight train of yowza! My daughter didn't say a word. I don't think she even tried the greens and instead contented herself with picking out the pieces of pork sausage. Now that's one smart cookie.
At first, we wondered if I hadn't been discriminating enough in selecting the broccoli rabe (otherwise known as rapini) from the market--maybe it was out of season or a bad batch. Maybe it was the preparation method (I cooked it for four hours with the pork sausage, chicken broth, and seasonings in the Crock Pot).
But maybe not.
I looked it up on the Internet. And the same three terms kept coming up to describe the taste of this vegetable (which is a member of a turnip family and in no way related to broccoli at all): nutty, pungent, and bitter.
"Well, two of the three," my husband proclaimed as he reheated leftover Chinese food. Maybe the nuttiness comes out if you can get past the other two taste assaults.
Another site went on to say that broccoli rabe is an "acquired taste" and that once you get used to it, it's addictive. And Corey, sage man that he is, made an apt comparison: "That's what people always tell me about beer, and I still don't like it." The beer comparison resonates well with me. I've never liked beer, no matter what kind I've tried, and I always come back to my father's assessment of it: "If it was any good, the horse would have kept it." And while broccoli rabe can't be seen as the waste product of any large mammal, I would propose that it is at least the illegitimate stepchild of the broccoli and turnip families, one that should be locked up in a dark basement, never to see the saute pan again.
Needless to say, I think it will be a long while before I am brave enough to try broccoli rabe again. I'm not saying never again, but it will be a while. At least until my taste buds grow back.
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