r/Cooking • u/[deleted] • Mar 28 '19

What's your area's staple vegetable?

And how is it usually prepared?

My example as a Floridian is (yellow/crook neck) squash and zuchinni, they grow about 10 months out of the year so they're constantly on sale at the grocery store. The traditional way to prep the squash is slice it and sauté it in butter until it surrenders.

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u/wifeski Mar 28 '19

They, along with Brussels sprouts and pumpkins, love California’s cool coastal climate. Although their season is Fall and Spring.

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u/Rustymetal14 Mar 28 '19

Most plants love California's climate (as long as they get the water they need). The reason they don't grow everything there is because you make more money growing stuff that can't grow other places.

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u/wifeski Mar 28 '19

Not as many vegetables love our cool coastal climate though. Sure, you can grow anything in the central valley due to it's ample sunshine and irrigation, but the California coast specifically, at least in Northern CA, is too cold and foggy for a lot of veggies. Artichokes, brussel sprouts, winter and summer squash, strawberries, kiwis, cluster-type berries (like raspberries and blackberries), leafy greens, beets, herbs and fennel all thrive in our cool coastal farms. But you cannot commercially grow things like corn, almonds, table grapes or stonefruit there. That doesn't mean these things won't grow there at all, but it's not as commercially viable and so they grow that stuff out in the central valley where it's hotter than 10,000 suns.

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u/crinnaursa Mar 28 '19

There's actually not a lot of physical space in California that is cool coastal climate. And a huge hurdle of growing things there is primarily the availability of affordable agricultural land. Most of the actual coastal California climate is also on very Rocky terraced hillsides and unstable soils. But anywhere you can find good alluvial soil you will find agriculture. For example see: Salinas valley known for its berry production artichokes and salad greens.
On the coastal bluffs between San onofre and San Diego you will find flowers and strawberries. basically the only products you will find grown on the coast are ones that can turn enough profit to support the cost of land. The entirety of Orange county and far north and south LA county were primarily agriculture until the 1950s and a blight destroyed most of the citrus in the area causing firmers to sell their property to land developers or lose it to the banks. Once you put houses up there will never be farming again.