Winter is now in the rearview mirror and as the blockages and seepage of my sinuses indicate, spring is in the air! As we bid old man winter, “adieu”, I feel compelled to pay homage to one of the sustaining and hearty root vegetables that has graced many a plate during the warm evenings around the old wooden dining room table. During a recent impromptu lunch at a conference, I had the pleasure of dining with an incredible fellow writer/blogger, and equally wonderful human being, Chris Boeskool.  Please check out his blog, theboeskool.com.  I joked that Chris is writing gut wrenching, hard hitting social commentary, and I by comparison am writing about rutabagas! But hey…somebody has to advocate for the most marginalized among us, root vegetables.  To paraphrase a quote from either John F. Kennedy or Rabbi Hillel, “If not me, then who? And if not now, then when?”.  And so I give you…rutabagas.

Our culture loves the flashy and outrageous.  Our culinary culture suffers the same fate.  Remember back in the 1970’s when Kiwi’s and Star fruit were all the rage? How about Fiddlehead ferns?  Very showy indeed.  I’m a purist.  I think of myself as embracing diversity and inclusion, so I welcome “the least of these”, the rutabagas and parsnips of the world.  You have a haven here my children.  Lay your weary leaves in my refrigerator’s vegetable drawer next to the celery, carrots, and onions. The lowly rutabaga with its purplish, yellow skin and waxy coat, what are you trying to hide?  Is it your way of keeping out all interlopers? Those who don’t wish to labor in order to get to your deliciousness?  It is labor you know.  Getting through that ridiculously tough exterior with either a very sharp knife, or a mega potato peeler.  Once through the barely penetrable outside, you still don’t yield easily.  That reminds me of myself actually.  Like the rutabaga, my ridiculously touch exterior is just the first layer of defense.  Once past that fortress, I’m still a tough turnip to slice and dice.  Eventually the rutabagas waxy, purple skin gives way to the golden inside, the inner sanctum of vegetabledom, and that’s where the goodness resides.  Like a fickle lover, the rutabaga doesn’t succumb without a lot of coaxing.

The art of the rutabaga is in its variousness.  It’s a root vegetable that lends itself to many preparations, once tamed.  The rutabaga embodies the spirituality of “the meek shall inherit the earth”. Strength under control.  For in its austere and rustic presentations lies all the warmth and goodness of a Sunday dinner, family and friends gathered around the table, home and hearth and all that is right in the world.  My beloved rutabaga suffers with international acclaim and more than just a bit of unfortunate history. It’s monumental to overcome a European reputation of “famine food” and all the unpleasantness associated with extreme hunger and hopelessness.  During both WWI and WWII, Germany and France suffered tremendous food shortages, and rutabagas were a bottom of the food chain item, often left in the winter fields for the foraging animals.  I can understand the German predisposition toward rutabaga hatred, but the French are just culinary snobs, no offense. Nowadays it wouldn’t be unusual for a chef to take the leafy green tops of the rutabaga, give them a quick saute’ in butter, and finish them with a pinch of smoked sea salt and cracked black pepper, all the while feeling self righteous with  an abundance of vitamin C, and their “farm to table” philosophy.  My kitchen isn’t trendy, just honest and real.

Rutabagas go by lots of aliases.  “A rutabaga by any other name would smell as sweet…”. Shakespeare is tilling the soil right about now.  The Swedes call them “kalrot” or “rotbagge”; the English call them “neeps”, and in the northeast of England they are called “snadgers” or “narkies”.  The Scots, (my people) call them “baigies”.  But one is left to consider why the rutabaga doesn’t just come out of the closet? Why so many aliases?  Rutabagas are you trying to sneak up on us, and weave your way onto the dinner plates of the uninitiated?  Vegetables get a bad rap.  It turns out that the phytochemistry of the rutabaga contains cyanoclucoside – which releases cyanide.  The human taste of bitterness in a rutabaga is from a gene that affects the bitter taste receptors.  Highly sensitive people with this genetic component will experience twice the sense of bitterness that unaffected people do, and all but render our friend the rutabaga inedible.  Kids, use that logic on your mom next time she shoves a plate of vegetables in your face.  We’re talkin’ cyanide for goodness sakes, “mom you’re killin’ me with these vegetables!”.  Kids, you can thank me now.

The variableness of the rutabaga makes it a rock star in the hands of a respectful cook.  Roasted or mashed, boiled in soups and stews, the preparations are endless.  On more Sundays than I can count, the lowly rutabaga has appeared in the mashed form, swollen with butter, and elevated with a pinch of salt and pepper.  Perched unsuspectingly next to a heap of creamy mashed potatoes, and alongside the roasted beets and Brussels sprouts, the warm golden dollop of mashed rutabagas seem like the lesser of the vegetable evils. That’s when I get them! Unsuspecting guests tend to shy away from the Brussels sprouts (traumatic childhood memories no doubt), and they don’t know what to make of the roasted beets. They go for the yellow pile of mashed “I don’t know what this is but it has to be better than the Brussels sprouts”. Then it happens…the conversion that is.  Their countenance brightens as though a long lost friend or the prodigal has come home. It’s like finding hidden treasure right there on your Sunday dinner plate.  Life is like that isn’t it?  Overcoming the fear of the unknown, and discovering freedom.  Like tasting the succulence of mashed rutabagas for the first time, and the joy of newness.  Just go for it!  Who knew that so much of life is experienced through a vegetable?  Rutabagas, where you been my whole life?