Forever young

Maturity is not all it’s cracked up to be. Aging may transform ingredients like wine and beef and cheese, but any number of other foods do even better on the Peter Pan principle: I don’t want to grow up.

This time of year it’s easy to see why. Spring is not a season when bigger is better: The sweetest strawberries are sometimes the tiniest, and the nuttiest-tasting asparagus the spindliest. No wonder all the miniature fruits and vegetables and proteins available most every month of the year start looking deceptively seasonal. Literally forever young, they’re the perfect temptations for appetites edging away from winter’s bring-it-on heartiness.

Right now even the average supermarket is overstocked with little examples: baby artichokes and baby carrots, baby arugula and baby avocados, baby bananas and even baby kiwifruit. Farmers markets are filling up with pea shoots (the gleam in a pea grower’s eye) and baby leeks and especially green garlic, which is essentially embryonic bulbs. Over in the meat aisle there are baby chickens (poussins to the precise French), and at the fish counter (at Asian markets, anyway), baby octopus and baby squid. Most of these can be found at other times of year, but never do they look so alluring. This is fertility season, artificial though it may be.

Baby vegetables first came onto the American food scene big time about 20 years ago, when nouvelle cuisine was still inescapable. Back then the sliver of salmon in the pool of sauce on the oversized plate would have looked too skimpy unless the “sides” with it were miniaturized as well. Ever since, they seem to have gone in and out of fashion in high-end restaurants while staking out ever larger bins in the produce aisle. But lately they seem to be stepping out of the nursery again, and it’s easy to taste why.

The true babies, the ones that are tiny because they have not reached full size, are undeniably the most rewarding. A baby zucchini with blossom still attached is a thing of beauty with full-bore flavor. But even the babies cultivated to stay endlessly youthful have their merits. Baby carrots, for instance, are simply bred to be sweet at a tender age. So are baby turnips, baby cauliflower and even that chef’s transgression, baby pattypans. Any of them is quicker to cook and more dramatic on a plate than the “adults.”

Baby artichokes are not infants at all but vegetables that stay small because they sprout at the base of the plant, shaded by leaves from the growth-enhancing sun. But they have even more flavor than the fat globes; because they are so tiny and tender and have not developed the nasty hairy choke at the center, you can almost eat the whole thing. (Just cut away the tough outer leaves to get to the pliable heart, slice it very thin and toss it into a salad, with fava beans and pecorino in the Italian tradition. Baby artichokes also take well to braising, and again, you can eat the whole thing, without the long wait and waste involved with a full-size artichoke.)

Baby spinach and baby arugula are seasonal sensations only in sunshine-deprived parts of America and a year-round staple in Southern California. But in either case they are milder, more tender cousins of the floppy leaves that wind up in markets as the summer heats up. Baby spinach is so soft it can be eaten straight in a salad, without the usual hot-bacon dressing needed for wilting, or with something buttery like ripe avocado (baby or regular). Baby arugula has an edge over its full-grown version too: the spindly parts haven’t taken over the whole leaves, and the greens retain their bite without bitterness.

Once upon a time in America new potatoes really were new, but now they are available year-round everywhere. And fingerlings, of course, are only a variety of potato, a big, wide variety at that. But in farmers markets you can usually find tiny just-dug spring potatoes that almost taste of the earth under their fragile skins. True new potatoes are all soft flesh, unlike the “new” red potatoes that have been dry-cured for better storage. They roast up beautifully but have such inherent flavor they can be served just boiled and tossed with coarse sea salt and butter.

Beyond all the legitimate babies, a few Joan Riverses unfortunately get through the child guards into supermarkets. As Elizabeth Schneider says in her excellent book “Vegetables From Amaranth to Zucchini,” “Plastic-bagged ‘mini-carrots’ are as likely as not to be older carrots machine-cut (‘baby-cut’) to resemble little ones.” The things are everywhere these days, but nothing that uniform exists in nature. As Schneider adds, with characteristic tartness: “If convenience matters more than taste and nutritional value, they’re the ones to buy.”

Mesclun is another potential pretender to babyhood. It originated as the tiniest and best leaves but has devolved into a wild tangle where anything goes, at any size. (Most of the time the “baby” greens are bulked up with huge chunks of radicchio.)

On the protein side of the nursery, baby lamb and suckling pig are the most obvious examples of what might be considered spring-sizing -- traditionally they were born and served this time of year without ever being allowed to reach their full potential. But a whole animal can seem like a relic from a world where feeding a village was a seasonal rite. As good and succulent as they are, today they’re unwieldy even for a dinner party.

Baby chickens, however, are another story. They’re not quite Easter chicks, but they do have a tenderness their elders have lost. Even better, each poussin serves one, with the elegance and refinement a Cornish hen completely lacks. (Half a roast chicken or less always seems a bit mingy for company.) To dress it up, you can stuff a poussin under the skin with a mix of spring garlic and herbs -- chives, dill, tarragon and parsley -- to keep the meat juicy and perfumed. Because a one-pound poussin cooks so quickly, the herbs stay vibrantly green as the skin crisps to a deep tan.

For a baby dessert, the obvious choice is bananas, which, like so many infantilized foods, are really not babies at all but hybrids bred to be sweetly full-flavored in dwarf state. I actually far prefer them to “grown-up” bananas, which often taste more woody than fruity. The most dramatic way to serve a baby is tempura style: marinated in rum with nutmeg and a little Angostura bitters, coated in airy batter and deep-fried. Try that with a big banana and you’d be facing down Baby Huey.

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Roast poussin with spring garlic-herb stuffing

Total time: 1 hour

Servings: 4

Note: Poussins are available frozen at Bristol Farms or can be ordered fresh from Bristol Farms or Whole Foods. You may substitute 8 regular garlic cloves if green garlic is not available.

1/4 cup chopped tarragon

1/4 cup chopped chives

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf

parsley

1/4 cup chopped dill

4 bulbs green garlic, minced

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted

butter, softened

4 poussins

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees.

2. Combine the tarragon, chives, parsley, dill and garlic in a small bowl. Add 1 teaspoon salt and toss to combine. Add one-quarter cup (one-half stick) butter and mix to make a paste. Carefully slide fingers between flesh and skin of each poussin to make a pocket from the breast over the legs without tearing the skin. Spoon one-fourth of the herb mixture into each pocket, with a little in the cavity. Pull the skin taut and carefully massage the herb mixture to distribute it relatively evenly. Season the birds inside and out with plenty of salt and pepper. Truss the birds if you like, or leave untrussed for a more evenly crisped skin. Rub the remaining butter on skin to coat.

3. Arrange the poussins on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Transfer to the oven and immediately lower the heat to 375 degrees. Roast until the skin is crisp and juices in the leg run clear when pricked (an instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of leg should read 160 degrees), 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Each serving: 886 calories; 58 grams protein; 3 grams carbohydrates; 0 fiber; 70 grams fat; 27 grams saturated fat; 399 mg. cholesterol; 172 mg. sodium.

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Chive-glazed baby carrots

Total time: 20 minutes

Servings: 4

Note: This works best with thicker rather than spindly carrots.

4 bunches baby carrots, trimmed and scrubbed or peeled

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 1/2tablespoons heavy cream

White pepper to taste

1 small bunch chives, chopped

1. Place the carrots in a skillet with the butter, sugar, salt and one-half cup water. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is evaporated.

2. Stir in the lemon juice and cream and bring to a boil, stirring. Season with more salt, if needed, and white pepper. Add the chives and mix with a rubber spatula until coated. Serve immediately.

Each serving: 106 calories; 1 gram protein; 9 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 8 grams fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 23 mg. cholesterol; 612 mg. sodium.

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Baby artichoke and pea shoot salad with favas and pecorino Romano

Total time: 30 minutes, plus shelling and hulling time

Servings: 4

8 baby artichokes

Juice of 2 lemons plus

2 tablespoons, divided

1 1/2cups shelled and hulled

fava beans

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/4 cup top-quality extra virgin olive oil

6 ounces pea shoots (about

7 cups)

2 ounces shaved pecorino

Romano

1. Trim the outer leaves of the artichokes down to the tender yellow-green centers. Slice off the tops and bottoms of the artichokes and trim the bottoms to remove any green parts. Cut the artichokes in half lengthwise and then into paper-thin slices. Immediately plunge the slices into a bowl of cold water acidulated with the juice of 2 lemons.

2. Bring a small saucepan of water to a rolling boil. Add the salt and return to a boil. Add the favas and blanch for 30 seconds. Immediately drain and run the favas under cold water to stop cooking. Set aside.

3. In a small bowl, whisk the remaining 2 tablespoons lemon juice with salt and pepper to taste. Add the olive oil and whisk until emulsified.

4. Place the pea shoots in a salad bowl, tearing any large ones into bite-size segments. Add the fava beans. Drain the artichoke slices and pat dry, then add to the bowl. Toss to mix. Drizzle with enough dressing to coat and toss to mix, adding more dressing as needed.

5. To serve, divide the salad among serving plates and strew pecorino shavings over each.

Each serving: 315 calories; 14 grams protein; 31 grams carbohydrates; 10 grams fiber; 18 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 10 mg. cholesterol; 338 mg. sodium.