Ari LeVaux

  The expression “gone to seed” usually has a negative connotation, meaning disheveled, declining or otherwise post-prime. When vegetable or herbs go to seed, or “bolt,” they quit being what you planted and become gangly towers looming over the garden. In this respect they’re more like teenagers than elders, but anthropomorphisms aside, the plant’s formerly […]

The first time I ate garlic flowers was for breakfast on a train from Beijing to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. The dining car didn’t have a menu. You sat down and they brought you food. I went there as soon as the train left the station, and was happy to find it open. A server delivered […]

Parsnips are hardly a secret. Unlike celeriac or rutabagas, most have at least heard of parsnips, even if they can’t remember what they look like. The fragrant taproot that resembles an ivory-white carrot was once a big deal in the old country. Medieval folks survived northern European winters on parsnips, which were used to make […]

Several polls in recent years have shown that about 90 percent of Americans support the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms. That’s about as close to a consensus as you’re going to get in this country. But amazingly, in this supposed bastion of freedom and democracy, we’re still denied the fundamental right of […]

MyPlate, the USDA’s new symbol of dietary correctness, was unveiled on June 2. It replaces the agency’s Eating Right Pyramid (est. 1992), which succeeded the Four Basic Food Groups (1956). Those four in turn represented a consolidation of the seven food groups the agency pushed in the 1940s, pared down from 12 during the Great […]

Carrots love garlic, and garlic doesn’t mind carrots. Those are some conclusions I reached last year when I finally got sick of looking at all the blank space between my garlic plants and decided to do something about it. They’re planted six inches apart, and if it weren’t for the straw mulch between them, most […]

Food purists often fuss about the inadequacies of USDA’s organic food standards, how pitifully watered down they are from the lofty principles that built the organic movement. They have a point. After all, the USDA’s National Organic Program was created to deal with big agribusinesses determined to exploit the lucrative organic market. But for all […]

At the Slow Food International convention in Turin, Italy last weekend, I joined food lovers from around the world as they perused a vast indoor market stocked with some of the tastiest morsels to be coaxed from the land anywhere. Samples were flowing in the great hall, dubbed Salone del Gusto (Salon of Taste). Rows […]

Food and agriculture issues might not make the headlines very often in a presidential race, but they affect everything from health to energy policy, and touch on a lot of ethical, economic and environmental issues along the way. Thus, I’ve been trying for weeks to reach Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton […]