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Here's why I'll never peel my veggies again.
My Grandma kept a formidable stack of spiral-bound cookbooks in her kitchen. Most of them were various church cookbooks gifted from friends and neighbors around town, packed with pages and pages of near-identical recipes for meatloaf, pound cake, and every Jell-O salad you can imagine. But flipping through the stack recently, I came across one that was a little different—it was not a cookbook, but a "Household Guide" published by the Wesleyan Service Guild of Lebanon, Virginia.
While I expected this "Guide" to have plenty of useful tips for conventional women's work like cooking and sewing, I didn't expect its topics to rival those of a Boy Scout leader's handbook. It contains a surprising amount of information on topics ranging from tax law and postal rates to common causes of fire and first-aid instructions.
Intrigued, I flipped through the book in its entirety. I discovered several tips that my grandmother carefully circled and underlined—as well as a few pages dog-eared for easy reference. It was a treat to see what she found useful and valuable, and I was struck by a veggie-cleaning tip that she highlighted within the food preparation section. It brought back a wave of memories of cooking with her, and I immediately wanted to try this smart trick myself.
My Grandma's Trick for Cleaning Veggies
The tip reads: "Instead of scraping new potatoes, carrots, turnips, etc., you will use a wire chore ball; it will be much easier and quicker, and the valuable food elements will be retained."
Reading this, I was instantly transported to my grandmother's kitchen sink. She never peeled her vegetables—a habit that I noticed and adopted without ever dwelling on it—until finding this "Guide." After all, there's so much to be enjoyed from the peel itself! Instead of scraping off the outermost layer of the vegetables, she scrubbed them with what she called "steel wool" or a wire chore ball. The abrasive surface removes a very thin layer of the vegetable peel without cutting too far into the flesh. It also successfully gets around tricky dirt and grime, sloughing it off almost immediately under a steady stream of water.
How It Works
I decided to try my grandmother's method again. Even though I already don't peel my vegetables unless they're very dirty or the recipe requires it, I don't always think to scrub them well. I love this tip, because it proves you don't need to buy a dedicated (and probably overpriced) vegetable scrubber. I always have a steel-wool chore ball on hand to keep my stainless steel cookware bright and shiny, so I used it.
Just like my grandmother would, I cleaned the surface of large whole carrots in gentle but firm circular motions, and immediately noticed that the wire ball does a lot of work, cleaning the surface and smoothing it out at the same time. After uncovering one of many sources of grandmother's wisdom, I'm inspired to forget peeling entirely and stick with the wire chore ball alone.
Give It a Try
I find this trick most effective with root vegetables that have been underground for quite some time, like beets, carrots, and potatoes. I would not recommend using a wire cleaning ball on fruit, as most already have hard peels or very delicate exteriors, like strawberries. But, next time you’re craving roasted or baked potatoes, roasted root vegetables, roasted carrots, or preparing a salad, such as beet salad, carrot ribbon salad, or carrot raisin salad, consider scrubbing them rather than peeling them entirely. Not only is it much less messy and wasteful, but you get a lot more to eat, too.
Read the original article on Allrecipes
