Produce in the News: Tomatoes, Corn, and Rhubarb

Ever heard of brown tomatoes?  Now you have. Ever cooked rhubarb?  We'll tell you what to do with it.  Know the best way to cook corn?  We have the answer.  All this info has been in the news of late, and we're happy to pass it on to you.

Brown tomatoes and organic tomatoes:

Here's a salad surprise for your dinner guests.  You may have served tomatoes in a wide variety of colors--yellow, green, purple, and perhaps even red--but type of tomato is relatively new, says the Consumer Reports publication ShopSmart,   The brand name mentioned in the article is Kumato. The tomatoes range from a deep brown to a golden green. They hail from Mexico or Canada and are available year round.

How do they taste? Here's what the Kumato website says, "They are sweeter than normal tomatoes, with a contrasting slightly sour note, which makes for a unique and clearly defined taste sensation. Furthermore, Kumato® tomatoes are very juicy and firm in texture, which means they are an excellent choice when preparing delicious salads and many tomato-based recipes."  Taste testers at ShopSmart seem to recommend them, but you may need to reassure your guests that the brown ones are not rotten and the greenish ones are actually ripe.  For more info on this product, visit the Kumato website.

Here's organic tomato news: According to the newsletter Consumer Reports on Health, Brazilian researchers compared the nutritional content of organic and conventionally-grown tomatoes and found the organic ones superior.  Though the organic ones were smaller, they had higher levels of vitamin C and yellow flavonoids, a type of antioxidant.  This result is surprising since many studies have concluded there are little or no nutritional benefits from eating organic produce rather than conventionally grown produce. For results of other studies, see these Shelf Life Advice articles "Is Organic Food More Nutritious Than Conventional Food?" and "New Study Rates Organic Food NO Healthier Than Conventional Food." No doubt, research and debate on this question will continue.

Corn on the Cob:

The question here is how best to cook fresh corn on the cob. Huffington Post recently ran an article (complete with video demo) on the subject. The author claims his method as the fastest and easiest. Not to keep you in suspense, the answer is to nuke it.  This technique is fast (about 5 minutes for one ear, and add a minute for each additional ear cooked at the same time), and, the author says, it also makes it a breeze to separate the corn from its husk.

Here are the directions: Cook the corn in the husk, then cut off the stem (and maybe a little additional piece along with it).  Next, apply slight pressure to the other and, and the corn should easily slide out. Use a pot holder to remove the corn; it will be hot. If you want a few laughs, watch the video that accompanies the Huffington Post article.  It shows the chef having various disasters with other methods of cooking corn on the cob.  

I asked Dr. Allen (who generally grills her corn) if she thought this recommended method would result in tender, moist corn, and she said she thought it would.  "You would be essentially steaming it, which would give you more flavor preservation."  That sold us. My husband I tried it, and it worked very well. It is, indeed, faster and easier. I used to struggle to peel corn and then figure 10 minutes of cooking time after I placed the corn in boiling water and waited for it to return to a boil. In the microwave, our two ears of corn were ready in 6 minutes, and the corn did slide out of the husk and silk effortlessly, as promised.

Rhubarb:

Rhubarb is in season and in the news these days. Minnesota's annual Rhubarb Festival is June 1 this year. The May issue of ShopSmart (a Consumer Reports publication) provides all you need to know about selecting and storing this item.  Furthermore, the website recipetips.com has tips on cooking it. 

But before we provide you with all this information, please take this one-question quiz: is rhubarb a fruit or a vegetable?   Well, we sweeten it and consume it as a fruit, but it's actually a vegetable.  Remember, fruit has seeds; vegetables don't.

Uses: What can you do with this stalk of produce besides make a rhubarb (or strawberry- rhubarb) pie?  A lot.  You can actually eat it raw with a little sugar sprinkled on it to cut the tartness. Alternatively, you can cook it to make jellies and jams, a sweet sauce (like applesauce), or muffins and cakes. 

Selection:  HereHere The stalks range from 1-3 inches thick.  Here's a case where bigger is not better.  The smaller ones are younger, more tender, and less stringy.

Precaution:  Before storing, trim off and discard the leaves, which, consumers are commonly warned, are toxic.  But don't let that scare you away from the product.  You're not going to poison yourself by handling them. Yes, the leaves do contain oxilate, which if consumed and digested, could be harmful and could contribute to the development of kidney stones.  However, food scientist Dr. Karin Allen (a member of this site's Advisory Board) says that, in fact, a healthy person with a balanced diet (with sufficient calcium and vitamin D) would probably have no bad reaction to consuming a few of these leaves because they would pass through the body undigested, especially if consumed with dairy. Furthermore, why would anyone eat the leaves?  Rhubarb dishes are made with the stalks.     

Storage and shelf life: Wrapped in plastic, the stalks can be kept in the fridge for up to 7 days. As with other produce, don't wash the stalks until you're ready to use them. An alternative to refrigeration: slice the stalks, and freeze the rhubarb in an airtight container.  ShopSmart says properly frozen rhubarb will last up to 3 months. 

Preparing and Cooking:  If the rhubarb is too stringy, it can be peeled. If it becomes limp, it can be rejuvenated by standing the stalks in a glass of water.

Rhubarb can be boiled, stewed, or roasted. Do not cook rhubarb in aluminum, iron, or copper pans. The high acidity reacts with these metals and causes the rhubarb to turn brownish and perhaps the pan or pot to discolor. Recipetips.com recommends using anodized aluminum, non-stick coated aluminum, or enameled cast iron.  For baking, glassware is recommended.  Rhubarb can be sweetened with sugar, artificial sweetener, honey, syrup, or preserves.

ShopSmart recommends rhubarb as nutritious: "It's a great source of vitamin C, calcium, and potassium."  The article also describes it as quite versatile, suggesting roasted rhubarb with blue cheese in a salad or chopped, stewed, or braised rhubarb with chicken, pork, or fish. 

One of our Advisory Board scientists, Dr. Joe Regenstein, calls rhubarb "one of nature's great foods."  He enjoys it in a simple compote--rhubarb, boiling water, and a sweetener, in his case Splenda.   Another scientist on our Board, Dr. Tim Bowser, raves about that old standard--strawberry-rhubarb pie. 

For more details about rhubarb, see "All About Rhubarb."

Source(s):

Timothy J. Bowser, Ph.D. , Oklahoma State University, Dept. of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Joe Regenstein, Ph.D., Cornell University, Dept. of Food Science

Karin E. Allen, Ph.D., Utah State University, Dept. of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Sciences

recipetips "All About Rhubarb"

http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--1110/all-about-rhubarb.asp

huffingtonpost.com "So Apparently, We've Been Cooking Corn Wrong Our Entire Lives"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/foodbeast/so-apparently-weve-been-c_b_3272754.html

kumato.com "F.A.Q."

http://www.kumato.com/en/-ska-sorulan-sorular.aspx

Consumer Reports on Health "3 Quick Tips: Bite into an organic tomato," June 2013.