CALIFORNIA GROWN FRESH BAMBOO SHOOTS – A SEASONAL DELICACY

Terrestrial delicacy

The UPS box of bamboo shoots I ordered from Jeff Rieger at Penryn Farms arrived at my doorsteps within three days since I placed the order. When I opened the box, I counted more than a dozen freshly harvested shoots, each weighing 1/4 lbs to ½ lbs, covered in their dark bark, with moist soil still clinging around them. I was elated by their earthiness and beauty. Like cherry blossoms, these terrestrial shooters signal the arrival of spring, which come late in the foothill of the Sierras east of Sacramento where the farm is located.

California Grown

I never expected I would encounter fresh bamboo shoots in California. Last time I ate a good bamboo in Los Angeles was when my husband brought back a big fat shoot from Japan in his suitcase. He had dug the shoot out from a friend’s bamboo forest, which was then cooked and packaged by his friend’s wife to bring back to me as a souvenir. Reiger grows Sweet Shoot Bamboo, phyllostachys Dulcis, which is the common name of an edible variety prized for its tender texture and sweet, delicate flavor. It is one of the many plants that the previous Japanese-American owners of Penryn Farms, George Oki, planted that reminded him and his wife of Japan, including Asian pears, peaches, plums persimmons and mandarins. Jeff’s had the bamboo forest for more than 10 years but he is just starting to go into the market with them in hopes to get chefs and cooks interested in using bamboo shoots as a culinary ingredient. So far, it has been a challenge because local chefs don’t know how to cook with them, even though it’s easier than one might expect. It didn’t take any effort on his part to sell them to me. I even asked him if I could come to his farm to dig the shoots out of the ground.

Harvesting Bamboo shoots

Every morning during harvest time sometime in May, Jeff goes out into the bamboo forest looking for the young shoots that are less than one foot long, which at this point of their growth are sweet and tender, and culinary. The timing of the harvest is important as bamboo can grow at the speed of 2 inches in an hour, or 4 feet in one day depending on the variety and harden quickly. Unlike some trees that take decades to mature, bamboo can fully matures in as little as three years.

Bamboo – A Metaphor for Life

In Asia, bamboo is often used as a metaphor for life - bamboo is flexible – it bends with wind and snow; it doesn’t break easily, and grows straight up into the sky – good qualities that you would want to see In a person. That is why Japanese eat fresh bamboo shoots in the springtime because it’s time for new growth. Digging bamboo shoots was an annual spring activity that I did with my grandmother to celebrate these qualities of life, and it’s amazing after all these years, I tell myself to be like a bamboo, when things get me down. I shake off what bothers me and spring right up.

Popular Bamboo shoots dishes

Learn about three delicious ways to cook with and eat fresh bamboo in my upcoming workshop. One of the most popular way to prepare fresh bamboo shoots in Japan is to make bamboo shoots rice or simmer the bamboo with fresh wakame seaweed in a lightly seasoned kombu-bonito base dashi stock. We made a whole meal out of fresh bamboo shoots to celebrate the season. Fresh bamboo shoots have a mildly sweet flavor and like asparagus or artichoke, are enjoyed for their good texture.

Nutrition

Bamboo shoots are prized not only for their flavor and texture but also for their dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals and low fat content. Some bamboos are inedible and contain toxins but like mushrooms, you have to source the edible varieties and learn how to prepare them, so you can get rid of the inherit bitterness in the bamboo shoot.

Tips for Cooking Bamboo Shoots

The Japanese take two steps to prepare the bamboo shoots. First the outer layer of bamboo, the dark and hard bark are peeled away until you reach the tender skin, which is pale and tender like the heart of palm. The tips are trimmed and discarded. The bamboo shoots are then precooked in rice bran (nuka) water to remove the bitterness or “aku’ for about 30 minutes, or until they are tender and a skewer can easily go through the meat. The rice bran, which is the ingredient for making fermented nuka pickles, is available at Japanese markets. The nuka water is discarded after cooking the bamboo, and the cooked bamboo is rinsed and ready to go for another round of cooking. You can use the cooked bamboo in a variety of ways –in a stew, stir fried, cooked with rice or used in a salad. Fresh bamboo shoots are one of the most versatile ingredients you can use in your cooking and they taste nothing like the smelly and flavorless water packed bamboo shoots that come in a can.

Sonoko Sakai

FAMILY MEAL: Spaghetti Marinara and Celery Parmesan Salad

I arrived to Sonoko’s house yesterday morning while she was out running errands. When I walked in, I found a box on spaghetti and blanched, peeled tomatoes from Sonoko’s garden waiting on the counter. These tomatoes were the final harvest from her summer stalks and she had picked them that morning for our lunch. We worked for a few hours, and then Sonoko hinted that she’d be curious to see how I might prepare lunch using these classic Italian ingredients.

I put a pot of water on to boil, chopped up some garlic, added a generous slick of olive oil to a pan, and squeezed in some tomato paste. I let it fry with the garlic and a whole purple chili pepper, also from the garden. When the garlic was cooked but not brown, and the tomato paste had be fried for a bit, I turned off the heat and drizzled in my secret ingredient, 1 tablespoon of deep, viscous Tamari from Sonoko’s pantry. Once everything was stirred together, it was time to add the tomatoes. In they went, with a fat pinch of salt and even more olive oil. While that simmered down, I popped out to the garden for some basil, parsley, and a still-green Meyer lemon (super fragrant and just juicy enough to use!). I dropped a couple basil sprigs into the pan with the tomatoes and then grabbed a bunch of cold celery from the fridge. While I sliced the celery thin, and made a dressing of Meyer lemon zest, juice, garlic, and olive oil, I set a ceramic platter in the freezer to chill.

The tomato sauce was looking almost done— time to cook the pasta, finish the sauce, and plate the salad.

I put the celery on the cold plate and topped it with shaved Parmigiano, parsley leaves, and the simple dressing. Sonoko and Hannah set the table and grabbed the iced lemon-verbena tea (also from the garden) that Sonoko had made the night before.

Then with just a couple minutes left for the spaghetti, I dropped two fillets of rock fish, cut bitesized into the sauce. The fish poached in the rich sauce until just opaque, then in went the spaghetti, straight from the cooking water, and it was time for Family Meal.

Mmmm.

Kali Bush-Vineberg