We're Seeing It Everywhere: Crudités

Photo credit: Julia Bainbridge

At a dinner party two weeks ago: crudités. In the June issue of Bon Appétit: crudités. At a friend’s birthday dinner in Brooklyn: crudités.

To echo the name of this column: We’re seeing it everywhere! The “it,” in this case, is a platter of raw vegetables—crudité is French for “raw”—often served with a creamy dip, sometimes with bagna cauda or hummus. Whatever is served on the side, the bulk of the platter is crunchy and green.

“There’s nothing new about eating raw vegetables,” wrote Helen Rosner on SAveur.com, “but in the States it wasn’t until the first half of the 20th century that an austere serving of celery sticks was recast as an opulent appetizer.” They went out of style for a while in the ’90s and early aughts (show us a menu from 1995 that contained crudités and we’ll give you our next batch of CSA radishes). But now, from farm-to-table restaurants such as Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore, Maryland (radishes and carrots served with raita-like cucumber-yogurt dip), to glitzy Las Vegas joints such as Rose. Rabbit. Lie. in the Cosmopolitan, crudités are all around us.

At the newly revamped Long Island Bar in Brooklyn, New York, chef Gabriel Martinez serves a plate of bok choy, wax beans, sugar snap peas, and slightly charred broccoli with a dip made from milk, Greek yogurt, chives, dill, cilantro, roasted jalapeño, lime zest and juice, garlic, and grated radishes. Of the lone cooked item on the plate, he says, “We wanted to have one thing that wasn’t completely raw, to bring a little more dimension. Broccoli is delicious, but it’s also the most pedestrian of all those things.” So he halves large florets lengthwise and chars them, cut side down, adding a bit of smoke to the otherwise snappy green flavors.

Martinez, who spent years in the molecular gastronomy school of thought, at Chicago’s Alinea, says it’s “refreshing to put something on the plate without manipulating it many times beforehand.”

He uses the dish to showcase in-season produce. “You don’t need to manipulate it in any way. You just pick it, wash it, and put it on a plate.” Try these recipes: Lemon-Thyme Dip with Raw Vegetables or Spinach-Artichoke Dip with Raw Vegetables.

The bonus: You don’t need to use (or wash) silverware to eat crudités, either.