Summer Food And Drink

June 17, 2003 5:53 PM

Cool Food For The Hot Summer Ahead: Bruce Cole's Sauté Wednesday has some enticing summery tips, as well as a superb collection of links to yummy articles on food and drink. Here in Portugal, we know Summer has begun when the first fresh sardines, start arriving, fat and silvery from the deep blue sea and straight onto the open-air barbecue, to be scoffed with buttery, yellow potatoes and great big salads overflowing with grilled green peppers, cucumbers, the first ripe tomatoes, sweet new onions and crunchy lettuce leaves.
posted by MiguelCardoso (9 comments total)

Ah yes. When I was a kid spending summers with my grandparents in Kansas, it was fresh corn on the cob that cemented the arrival of summer for us.

Miguel, we've got onions like crazy and we'll have tomatoes in about a week. I expect you for dinner shortly thereafter.
posted by padraigin at 6:10 PM on June 17, 2003

Miguel, it all sounded good except for the sardine part. Here where I live we eat them out of the tin, a wee bit of vinegar poured over, with saltine crackers on the side.

Barbarians, we are. ;-)
posted by konolia at 6:23 PM on June 17, 2003

Ah Miguel, you master of Metafilter. The only time I've wanted to eat sardines was in Lisbon during the summer. My family and I went down to one of the outdoor "restaurants" by the dock. The boat just came in and the sardines were as fresh as could possibly be. Simply grilled, they were incredible.

Here in the good ol' USA, summer in New England means tomatoes with feta cheese and olive oil, strawberry shortcake on the 4th of July, zucchini marinated in tamari and thrown on the grill, *real* peaches, cherries and raspberries and of course I have to second the corn on the cob.
posted by jeremias at 7:50 PM on June 17, 2003

Thanks for the link. I just went and picked up my second CSA share, and I'm looking forward to a summer of really great produce, including plenty of things I probably wouldn't go out and buy. Always on the lookout for good recipe ideas from fellow foodies.
posted by UrbanFigaro at 9:36 PM on June 17, 2003

Mouth watering content, but I gotta disagree with one thing: I would never risk a decent homemade potato salad on a limp paper plate (and rarely a mediocre store-bought salad). Damn the environment, I want umpteen layers of cardboard ensuring that precious chunky mixture never hits the ground (and even if it did, I'd call the "five second rule"). I admit it, I am a potato-head and Atkins will never tear me away from potato salad, hash browns or a well-constructed grautin (however it's spelled).

Anyway, Cole's linklist is awesome, but has he ever had a frying pan confiscated by Airport Security?
posted by wendell at 12:18 AM on June 18, 2003

An Indian friend of mine once prepared me a corn on the cob with butter, salt, lime juice & chilli powder. Wow!

Here in the UK we had our first summer in April, a load of warm rain in May & are currently well into the second summer...feels like mid-August at the moment. This has sent most plant life into a bit of a tizz. My g/f, Queen Salad, is having a riot with the produce from all of the organic nurseries that are tucked around the South Downs.

My current fave Portuguese food.

BTW, a doctor I know who specializes in allergies found that she had a build up of toxins in her body from the time she lived in Portugal. Apparently they came from the salads that were her staple diet at the time & were from the high levels of chemicals sprayed on the crops. [IIRC the cucumbers were the worst offenders.]
posted by i_cola at 4:08 AM on June 18, 2003

Summer arrives when you can get Italian cherries at a price which doesn't make you say 'fucking hell!' when you weigh out a pound. Not quite here yet, in spite of the weather. And a good thing, probably: it's tempting to turn that pound of cherries into lunch, which gives you a sugar rush to resemble a demented wasp.
posted by riviera at 7:03 AM on June 18, 2003

Cool Food For The Hot Summer Ahead...
freeze your fruit to be served. Out at the pool I like to munch on fruit, and most stores already have them slice/bagged/frozen in the frozen isles. Peaches, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, mango/pineapple/strawberries are some of the choices, think they are for pie backing though.
For grapes, notice the red taste better than the white frozen, plus after freezing the grapes you can shake them a round in the bag then serve, instead of pulling them off individually. Nothing like coolness in the tummy during summer.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:50 PM on June 18, 2003

Just the link I needed to try my hand at cooking summer produce. And thumbs up to sardines on Portugal -- they were excellent the last time I tried them in Faro!
posted by lunadust at 5:53 PM on June 18, 2003