Edamame from the Farm

eating local

Oct 18, 2023

Hello,

Waterloo Village was the halfway point along the Morris Canal between Phillipsburg, New Jersey, on the Delaware River, and the port in Jersey City on the Hudson River in the mid-1800s. Mule-drawn barges could transport up to seventy tons of anthracite coal from the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania allowing towns like Dover and Rockaway to fuel their iron mines. The heat generated from the coal was required to separate the iron from the ore. Waterloo Village was a full-service stop for barge operators offering a blacksmith to shod their mules, a general store, a church, and an inn to break up the long, five-day journey across the state. The town was abandoned after barges were replaced by the railroad.

Last month, my friend Madeline and I set up our easels in the partially restored Waterloo Village, now part of Allamuchy State Park. The village is home to twenty-six historic buildings including a functioning gristmill, sawmill, and Colonial and Victorian houses some of which seem to be inhabited. The Methodist church still holds Sunday services. The site is open to the public for walking and I’m quite sure that they hosted children on field trips in the not-too-distant past. There is a venue to rent for special events including weddings and the site certainly offers many picturesque backgrounds for photos. Paths for walkers, not for cars, wind through the village so we lugged our easels and supplies as far as our energy would allow. The area is secluded enough to transport you back to a simpler time, but not so secluded that you feel like you are in a ghost town.

Apparently, the barges would occasionally transport crops, but that was far from their main purpose. The farms that grow crops in our part of New Jersey seem to rotate their fields from year to year between corn and soybeans. The farmer right around the corner from us raises beef cattle and the fields that I drive by are planted with soybeans this year. I wondered if it was to feed his own animals, but most of the crop is transported to the port in Jersey City and shipped overseas. After trying edamame at a Chinese restaurant I finally saw the connection between edamame and all those fields. Soybeans are converted, of course, into soy milk, tofu, miso, and animal feed, but the immature plant, known as edamame, is a delicious snack. When the fields turn yellow and then brown the mature soybeans are ready to harvest, but towards the end of August the edamame was ready to be picked. My husband, always the good sport, tracked our farmer down in his barn and asked if he could pick some for his wife. When I am surrounded by 18-wheelers on the highway, I sometimes think about the transformation from barge to railroad to trucks and shipping food across an ocean.

You can find edamame frozen in the grocery store if you aren’t neighbors with a soybean farmer. The ones that my husband picked were smaller than I had expected and, as you can see from the photo, they are rather hairy. The pods are not consumed and from what I read the plant is poisonous when raw! Soybeans are full of vitamins, fiber, and protein. We found them to be delicious.

Instructions for Cooking Fresh Edamame

Lightly salt the pods on a cutting board and massage with your hands. Cut off each end of the pod so that they will open when cooking. This is a bit labor-intensive since they are small. Cover with water and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Simmer for about four minutes. The pods will have opened up releasing the beans. I divided the pods along with the beans into a couple of serving bowls.

Thanks for reading, liking commenting, and sharing!

Vicki