Breaking breaking! Heart of palm is in for our new favorite ingredient substitute. Gone are our tofu scrambles, and in comes heart of palm ceviche. Out of bananas for your banana bread? Don’t fret, heart of palm makes an incredible sweet bread. These creative uses of heart of palm are something I will be bringing back with me in America. Heart of palm is not for simple salads anymore, we are expanding the horizon.
And in order to keep up with this demand for our new favorite vegetable, we need to understand where it is coming from, and how it is made. Firstly, it is literally the heart of a palm tree. Under layer upon layer of natural coverage and located at the base of a young palm tree, there is about a meter’s length of edible heart of palm that is then cut into manageable pieces for customers and chefs.
These trees are grown in a different environment compared to our previously seen coffee plants. They are nurtured in a humid environment at a low altitude, which is basically the exact opposite of coffee. When visiting coffee plantations, we climbed volcanoes and stayed at a high altitude for their lower humidity and fertile soil. This time around we climbed the volcano to go right back down into a very humid region at a low altitude. And while coffee takes about a three year process, heart of palm can begin being harvested at around seven months. It can also be harvested year round, versus the four month period of coffee harvesting.
And since the heart of palm process is always happening, there is a large amount of planning that goes into a successful plantation with plenty of product. Whether that is planning the pasture layouts to maximize plant spaces, or taking inventory of the age of each plant to make sure there never are under or overripe crops, it is always happening. So let’s give thanks to our palmito farmers who are supplying us the new vegetable that has our heart. ¡Gracias!
