A COLORADO FARMER’S SANDWICH
Recipes for A Colorado Farmer’s Sandwich, Sweet Onion Jam and a Palisade Peach and Basil Salad follow this story below.
In 1876, then-President Ulysses S. Grant declared the state of Colorado the 38th of the Union.
Around that same time, farming and ranching had begun to eclipse mining as more profitable enterprises for those living here. Growing food began to make both more sense and money than digging for silver and gold.
Well-known Colorado foodstuffs such as the sugar beet, the Palisade peach and Rocky Ford cantaloupe all trace their lineage hereabouts to the period of the late 1800s.
Nowadays, Colorado agriculture is huge: $47 billion a year grown, raised, and produced, over 36,000 farms and ranches and 32 million acres of land. We eat but one of the officially designated states critters—the greenback cutthroat trout—although moves have been afoot since 2014 to entitle the Palisade peach as the official state fruit.
(The debate has been both rancorous and difficult to be had. For example, folk from Rocky Ford dearly love and promote their melon as a foremost Colorado fruit, deserving of honorifics over and above the Palisade peach. They cannot castigate the peach, however, because Colorado is only state in the country where it is a crime to malign or disparage a fruit or a vegetable.)
Other foods come to mind when thinking Colorado: bison meat, Olathe Sweet Corn (always use the entire three-worded name, please), Pueblo green chiles, and, of course, those “swingin’ steaks,” the original sack lunch—Rocky Mountain oysters.
Some of the reasons all these foods of Colorado taste so very good are themselves distinctly Coloradan. We’re dry; we’re high (I reference elevation). Our growing conditions are marginal, with large day-to-night temperature fluctuations and relatively poor but mineral-rich soils.
Abundant uninterrupted sunlight—the “high” part—and minerally soils help develop both color and flavor intensity in fruits such as peaches and cantaloupes. Diurnal temperature swings slowly ripen and augment fruit sugars but also at the same time retain fruity acidity (meaning that that peach is both sweet and tangy, a combination superior than being either alone).
And even lack of water can be a benefit. The father of the Rocky Ford melon industry, George Washington Swink, found that watermelons and cantaloupes grown in the dry climes of southeastern Colorado were more concentrated in flavor and fruit sugars, and less prone to “melon burst” from excess rainfall.
The recipe here is for a “farmer’s sandwich,” the kind of noonday meal farmers might pack for themselves to eat for lunch out in the field, or that anyone might assemble from fresh farm produce especially in summertime.
A recent survey by the Colorado Department of Agriculture found that 85 percent of Coloradans buy, or try to buy, Colorado products when shopping or dining out.
Here’s a stab at an all-Colorado farmer’s sandwich, with shout-outs to some proud farmers, cheese makers, winemakers and bakers that call Colorado home.
The flag of the State of Colorado
RECIPE: An All-Colorado Farmers’ Sandwich
Ingredients
1 large loaf well-crusted bread, locally made, in the form of ciabatta or baguette
Whole grain mustard
Sweet onion jam (recipe follows)
Slices of firm or semi-firm Colorado cheese (such as Origin Nutrition’s A2 Jack cheese or Colorado Farmhouse Cheese’s Ticino)
Thin slices of tart Colorado apple such as a Braeburn (if available)
Soft-leafed, sweet lettuce (Altius Farms, for example, or Petrocco green or red leaf when in season)
Directions
Assemble the sandwich in layers: Slices of bread, mustard, sweet onion jam, slices of cheese and apple, and lettuce. If saving for later, wrap the sandwiches in waxed paper or plastic wrap and keep in a cool, dry place.
RECIPE: Sweet onion jam
Adapted from foodandwine.com
Ingredients
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 medium Colorado sweet onions cut into 3/4-inch dice (about 2 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup dry red wine (such as 2020 Colterris Malbec, Grand Valley CO)
1/3 cup grenadine
Salt
Directions
Melt the butter in a medium skillet. Add the onions and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until soft and just translucent, about 8 minutes. Add the sugar, wine, vinegar, grenadine and a pinch of salt. Cook over low heat, stirring, until the liquid thickens and coats the back of a spoon, about 35 minutes. Transfer the onion jam to a bowl and let cool.
RECIPE: Palisade peach and basil salad
Adapted from from Gabrielle Langholz’s “America: The Cookbook” (Phaidon 2017). Serves 4.
Ingredients
6 Palisade Colorado peaches
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup very thinly sliced red onion
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 large basil leaves
1/4 cup crumbled sheep’s milk feta or plain goat cheese
Directions
Slice the peaches and toss with the tomatoes, lemon juice, honey, red onion and salt. Tear the basil leaves into small pieces and add to the salad. Top with crumbled cheese.