Turnips, Kohlrabi, Radishes and Other Odd Vegetables

Strangely Beautiful Kohlrabi (photo courtesy of Vermont Food Bank)

The Key to Survival:  Odd Vegetables?

Last week, we got kohlrabi in our CSA boxes for a second time in a row. Chatting with a fellow CSA* member she complained, “Why did we get kohlrabi again? Can’t they just give us vegetables we know?”

Our personal vegetable kingdoms are frequently divided between “vegetables we know” and “everything else.” The former category includes perennial favorites like tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and peppers. The latter is a dumping ground for those vegetables we never buy or that don’t have instant taste appeal–like kohlrabi, collards, radishes, turnips, parsnips and celeriac.

Why go to the effort of growing, buying and cooking all these odd vegetables? If we can go to the store and buy easy things like carrots and spinach, why bother with produce that presents such preparation and palatability challenges? It’s a fair question, and I’ve often asked it of myself, especially since our classes frequently use vegetables from the “everything else” category.

The answer can be summed up in one word:  Diversity.

Potato blight–not a pretty sight.

I recently attended Food: Our Global Kitchen, the Colorado History Museum’s current exhibit.**  Two juxtaposing displays really drove home the point of diversity.  The first described how, at the time of the tragic Irish Potato Famine, millions of Ireland’s population subsisted largely on just one crop, the potato. To make matters worse, they relied on just one variety of potato. So when the pathogen P. infestans (a/k/a potato blight) struck in 1845, it “spread alarmingly quickly, cutting yields from that year’s harvest in half. By the next year, harvest from potato farms had dropped to one quarter of its original size.” In the ensuing famine, over one million people died of starvation.***

The wild diversity of Peruvian potatoes (courtesy of MikeJackson1948.wordpress.com)

The second display described a very different situation across the globe, where native populations in the Andean highlands had developed nearly 4000 potato varieties over thousands of years, each capable of withstanding different diseases, pests, water availability, soil conditions, etc.  So even though P. infestans is believed to have originated in Peru, the Andean region was spared its devastation.***

My great grandmother was a Potato Famine emigrant, so these displays really left me shaken.  Monoculture, the practice of planting acres and acres with a single variety of a single plant, leaves us so frighteningly vulnerable–just one disease from disaster. Sadly, we haven’t learned much. Not many years after the Irish Potato Famine, American farmers continued planting fields upon fields with just a few varieties of potatoes.   These became an “ocean of breakfast” for the next potato scourge: the Colorado potato beetle, which has been a continuing pest epidemic ever since, kept in check only by massive and multiple applications of pesticides.

At my CSA Farm, Monroe Organic Farms, over 100 produce varieties are planted on just 20 or so acres! Not only do the Monroes grow a huge number of produce items from asparagus to zucchini and carrots to watermelon. In addition, they juggle four different varieties of carrots, five kinds of zucchini, five of watermelon–did you even know there were five kinds of watermelon, all quite different? Here, 4th generation farmer Kyle Monroe sells asparagus and strawberries.

What’s to save us? Diversity. It’s the “technology” Nature has always deployed to keep disease and pests in check. Faced with a riotous mix of species and varieties, insects and pathogens can’t multiply and adapt to dangerous levels.

Which brings us back to turnips, kohlrabi and radishes. The more odd things on our farms, the less we are vulnerable to massive crop failures. And should pests or hail or a water shortage bring down one crop, there’s a good chance the damaging condition will have little or no affect on other crops or varieties.  Last year, for instance, our CSA farm was hit by fury of hail that sheared the tops off most crops–but all the root crops were safely buried in the ground. So we rued the loss of Monroe’s famous melons, but cheered at the bounty of carrots, potatoes, beets and celeriac.

Diversity yields benefits on a personal level, too. As we eat a greater variety of foods, our bodies benefit from a wider range of nutrients. In fact, Jacquie, our CSA farmer, says this is an important reason for including vegetables from the “everything else” category, i.e., so members get a chance to try and benefit from new foods.  And there’s nothing like a variety of tastes–from the sweetness of peaches to the earthiness of turnips–to create a dish with deep, well-rounded flavor.

Diverse Varieties of Carrots:  Buying at Farmers’ Markets featuring locally grown foods from diversified farms is an excellent way to support an environmentally sound food system.

Finally, many “odd” produce varieties are what grow best in Colorado. While finicky tomatoes and cucumbers can only be grown in our hottest months, sturdy crops like kale, chard, and yes, radishes, kohlrabi and turnips, can be grown in our chilly, unpredictable springs and autumns as well. So while waiting for the hot weather crops to (finally) produce, several rounds of cold-weather crops can be harvested and eaten–and many can be stored through the winter months.

In a world where easy and familiar vegetables are shipped in to your grocery store no matter the month, it’s easy to ignore the odd vegetables. But perhaps you want to help transition us to an environmentally sound, resilient food system, where tomatoes aren’t shipped in from places 1000 miles away and we aren’t dependent on drought-ravaged California for 90% of our food supply. One of the best ways to contribute is also one of the easiest: simply buy, use and create demand for the odd vegetables.

And don’t worry about the taste. Over time, our taste buds grow and develop so that we come to treasure the “unique” flavors of each member of the vegetable kingdom. Our classes are a perfect way to gain some exposure, experiment and learn tricks and tips to make the odd vegetables a natural part of your diet.  And see the following posts on How to peel and cut a kohlrabi, quick ideas for using kohlrabi, and a recipe for Slow Cooker Kohlrabi Gratin.

Notes

*”CSA” stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Having a CSA is essentially like buying a one-season share in a local farm; in return, you get a box of the farm’s produce harvest each week.

** Food: Our Global Kitchen is open through September 1; well worth a trip to downtown Denver

*** Information drawn from Smithsonian.com, Scientists Finally Pintpoint the Pathoget that Caused the Irish Potato Famine, May 21, 2013;   http://cipotato.org/potato/  and  Smithsonian.com, How the Potato Changed the World, November, 2011.

Doubling Your Vegetable Dollars

There are a lot of stems, stalks and tops going down the garbage grinder that could actually be put to use. It’s called “doubling your vegetable dollars,” and it just takes looking at vegetables in new and creative ways. Remember the article on Radishal Solutions?  It talked about a new way to use those radishes that are almost always available and always cheap. I promised some suggestions on using the tops. Here’s one:

Asian Hamburger Skillet

• 1 lb. lean hamburger
• 1 med. red onion, sliced about ¼” thick, then cut into 2” lengths
• 1 bunch radishes, cut in matchsticks (or halved and sliced about 1/8” thick)
• 4 carrots, julienned or cut in ¼” slices
• 1 bunch radish tops, cut roughly into 1” pieces
• 1 ½ tsp. ginger paste
• 2 Tbsp. fish sauce

In a large sauté pan, cook hamburger over medium high heat, until just beginning to brown, breaking into small bits with spatula. Stir in onion and radishes and cook another 2-3 minutes. Stir in carrots, radish tops, ginger paste and fish sauce and cook about 5-10 minutes, until onions are softened and hamburger is cooked through.

• 1 lime (optional)
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Sprinkle with lime juice (if using) and pepper, to taste. Serve immediately.

“Radishal” Solutions

I always got after myself about radishes. They’re one of the first fresh vegetables to come from the fields in spring, they’re pretty and plentiful–and almost always cheap. But I couldn’t get myself to eat more than a sliver at a time. I tried them again and again, with hopes of acquiring a taste for the peppery little buggers, but never met with success. Until this spring.

I discovered that their peppery taste could be toned down to a palatable level with a little light cooking. It shouldn’t have taken so long to make the connection. I had always loved daikon in miso soup, slightly crunchy and a tiny bit bitter, just enough to add some interest. But not until this spring did I connect the dots: Hmmm. . . daikon is a radish—a long white Japanese one, but a radish nevertheless. . . . I like it in soup–and stir fries, come to think of it. . . . maybe the cooking is key . . . .

So I began experimenting. First an Asian-themed soup using watermelon radishes, then a hamburger skillet dish featuring plain old red radishes. Once cooked, they added just the right amount of zing. Last night, with no less than four bunches of radishes in the frig, I tried a radish salad based on a recipe included with one of my weekly produce deliveries.

It was delicious! Here’s the recipe, but when you make it, don’t throw out the radish tops as they’re completely edible, too. More on that later. . .

Asian Radish and Carrot Salad

• 1 small sweet onion (e.g., Vidalia or Walla Walla)
• 2 tsp. safflower or oil (or toasted sesame)

In a large sauté pan, heat the oil over medium heat until fairly hot, add onions and sauté about 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

• 1 bunch radishes, cut into ¼” matchsticks (2-3 cups of cut radishes)

Add to the onions and cook just 2-3 minutes, stirring a couple times.

• 4 Tbsp. brown rice vinegar
• 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp. agave nectar
• 1 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
• 1 tsp. minced garlic (from a jar is fine)
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

While vegetables cook, combine dressing ingredients in a medium-sized glass serving bowl. Stir to combine thoroughly, then pour into vegetables. Cook just 2-3 minutes then pour everything back into the glass serving bowl.

• 3 med. carrots, julienned, then cut into roughly 2″ lengths

Toss with onion-radish mixture and serve at room temperature or chilled.

Notes:

Onion: Although a sweet onion is called for, a yellow or red would also work; they just take a little more sautéing to remove the raw-onion taste. Also, perfectly in season, would be green onions, which don’t need much cooking at all. Throw them in the pan just before the radishes.

Radishes: I used regular Red Globe radishes, along with a fancier variety called d’Avignion . I imagine almost any kind would do, especially daikon. Cutting the little critters into matchsticks is the only time-consuming part of this recipe, but I can’t think of a good substitute cut. Cut off both ends, then stand the radish up on one of the flat ends. Slice it vertically, then flip it over and cut vertically again to form “matchsticks” about ¼” square. Have them pretty well cut and ready to go before putting the onions on to cook. Otherwise, the onions will get overdone.

Carrots: The fastest way to julienne carrots is with a julienner, a hand tool that costs around $10. Great investment.