Despite my fervent wishes, autumn was creeping around the edges of this week’s Farmer’s Market. The last of the summer berries were gone, and the first of the hard winter squashes appeared. Instead of focusing on any of those, I decided to highlight something I’d never seen before: pápalo. Pápalo is a Mexican herb, the woman at the booth told me, and urged me to smell it and taste it. It had a slightly smoky, vegetal aroma, though it tasted much more ordinary than I imagined. The funny thing is I had just read about pápalo over on Eating in Translation. As he noted, the flavor of the herb has stayed with me.

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