I don’t think we ever ate turnips when I was growing up, and as a result I never formed a taste model for them; they always strike me as potatoes that aren’t quite potatoey enough. (Potatoes were slow to catch on after their introduction to the Old World, but supplanted turnips as the dominant root vegetable in much of Eastern Europe after a series of crop failures in the 18th century.) I use turnips when a recipe calls for them, but don’t recall ever having been struck by the sudden hankering for that slightly sharp, moderately starchy experience. So, when we received half a pound of turnips early in our CSA adventures, I had to set about looking for good ideas.
As luck would have it, good ideas were already upon me, hidden in a book I’d purchased years ago yet had barely ever used. Linda Ziedrich’s The Joy of Pickling had entertained me with anecdotes, literary snippets about pickles and interesting flavor ideas, but I’d never followed any of its instructions except to experiment, while I was in college, with pickled garlic cloves. Read the rest of this entry »
