FOOD HOLIDAY: Ways To Use Spinach National Spinach Day
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March 26th is National Spinach Day. Popeye may have enjoyed his spinach straight from the can, but for today, we can come up with 20 better suggestions. According to Mediterranean food expert Clifford A. White, spinach comes from a central and southwestern Asian gene center. It may have originated from Spinacia tetranda, which still grows wild in Anatolia. The plant, which does not like heat, was successfully cultivated in the hot and arid Mediterranean climate by Arab agronomists through the use of sophisticated irrigation techniques. The first known reference to spinach dates to between 226 and 640 C.E., in Persia. Over trade routes, spinach was introduced to India and then to ancient China in 647 C.E., where it was (and still is) called “Persian vegetable.” The first written reference to spinach in the Mediterranean are in three tenth-century texts. It became popular vegetable in Provence, and by the 15th century was common in Provençal gardens. It traveled north, and Europe became a spinach-loving continent. |
 [1] A warm spinach dip, creamy with mascarpone cheese (photo © Vermont Creamery).
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