The Turnip Truck (a chapter from last winter)

[Jess]

In the deep midwinter, I am getting tired of root vegetables. I can only cook
rutabagas, turnips, parsnips, carrots, and potatoes so many different ways.
Roasted, pureed, French fried, buttered, braised, whizzed into soup, I’ve
exhausted my repertoire. In an attempt to break out of my rut, I made a Dutch
dish called stumppot day before yesterday, and last night we had Indian samosas. I
managed to hide a lone turnip, mashed in with the curried potatoes and peas,
but didn’t dare attempt the same with a rutabaga.

Finn kneaded the samosa dough, broke it into balls, dropped them on the
floor, and in a novel culinary method, stuffed the damp and dusty wads up his
shirt. The kids helped me roll the dough, stretch the balls into pancakes, place a
lump of potato mixture in its center, then carefully squeeze and seal the dough
around the filling. Finn’s samosas were lumpy, lopsided creations that exploded
in the oven, oozing curried potatoes and peas all over the pizza stone. Despite
their odd appearance, he gobbled them up, piping hot from the oven.

The kids are generally pretty good about trying new foods, but the root
vegetables seriously tax their patience. They yearn for the fruits of summer.
Peaches, peas, corn, raspberries. “Have some applesauce” works most of the
time, but it wears thin. I fear the kids will be hearing this particular refrain
hundreds of times before fresh fruit makes another appearance on our trees and
vines.

It’s nearly January, and the root cellar still houses over a hundred quarts of
applesauce and tomatoes, pails of garlic, shallots and onions. Our mudroom
doubles as the winter vegetable storage area because it’s cold, but not freezing.
Hard-skinned winter vegetables compete for floor space among our skis, drippy
boots and firewood.

I ruined some of my best winter stores out of ignorance and ineptitude, while
learning valuable lessons for next year. I must dry the squash really well before
storage, or it will mold and rot. I mustn’t remove the Brussels sprouts from their
stalks because the stalk will continue to feed the tiny sprouts for at least a month.
I have to remember to bend the onion tops over before harvesting in order to seal
off the stalk and allow the bulb to cure more easily. I should eat the hard neck
garlic first because it does not keep as well as the soft neck. Yes, I can keep leeks
in the ground all winter and chip them out when I need them, but it’s harder
than I imagined to get slimy frostbitten leeks out of the frozen earth, even when I
attempt to thaw the earth ahead of time with the still-hot coals from the
wood stove. Planting a lot of turnips and rutabagas may sound like a brilliant
idea in the warm idyll of summer, but in the depths of winter, the bounty in the
mudroom seems to mock my lack of imagination.

Mark Bittman may know How to Cook Everything, but even he can muster only
lukewarm descriptions of rutabagas and turnips. And while he raves about the
lowly parsnip, his most sage advice is regarding their selection, “avoid the soft or
flabby specimens.” Wise man.

So unless I can find a cookbook on the misunderstood and under-appreciated
appeal of root vegetables, it looks as if I’m on my own until spring.

Excerpted from:
The Education of a Flatlander
By Jessica Lahey
www.themillyard.blogspot.com
Representation contact: Kay McCauley, The Pimlico Agency

[Jess]

Ugh. It was not a great canning year. No tomatoes (thank you, blight), but lots of applesauce, dried leeks, canned wild blackberry jam and preserves, canned rhubarb chutney, and both canned and frozen blueberries. I have potatoes hilled outside, cold frames with various cold-weather greens, leeks and carrots still in the ground but mulched, and plenty of onions and garlic. Garlic and shallots are planted for next year. The chickens are under lights for part of the evening to they will continue to lay, and I am planning some seedlings for the light table so I can continue my greens all winter long. I am also planning to try Organic Gardening Magazine's tip for overwintering spinach. Plant it now, mulch well, and check for early spinach in the spring. That's about it. How about you?

[Mike Szewczyk]

Fun read!

It's November, what's in the cellar now?