Salsify and other vegetable oddities (419)
by Max Akroyd
The weather in Brttany isn’t doing anything by halves this year: if you get a sunny day, you get a sunny week. Which is great, until it rains and then you risk being washed away by the seventh day.
But with pigs napping in the sun without a care and goats nibbling at Spring’s new growth, it’s not a sensible time to worry too much about weather patterns; it’s time to keep sowing and planting. The next vacant bed in my Kitchen Garden plan – no. 25 – is allocated to what most people would consider oddities: salsify, scorzonera and Hamburg parsley.
Whenever I see reference to an unusual vegetable though, I tend to pay close attention. I’m discovering that a lot of these obscure edibles are very relevant to a plan for self-sufficiency. A lot of them tend to crop in times where most, more popular, vegetables don’t. One of the reasons they’ve lapsed into obscurity is presumbly that they’re difficult to process mechanically/industrially and, instead, need a gnarly old peasant to coax them out of the ground. Well, here I am!
By the same token, I’m also finding that the older books are more relevant to my recent life-choices – here’s a relevant extract from How to Grow and Produce Your Own Food, 1946:
Salsify and scorzonera fit the ‘useful oddity’ definition very well. I’ve grown them before and the brittle roots were so big and deep I couldn’t get them out of the ground. Apparently you need a crow bar. But their roots offer a gourmet winter alternative and, if left in the ground and blanched in early spring, the shoots are edible as ‘chards’. It’s this latter, hungry gap crop which has particularly caught my eye and spurred me on to create a decent space for them this morning.
Next stop bulbous chervil?
***
A beautiful day all spent outdoors.
After weeding the bed and forming the drill for the salsify, scorzonera and Hamburg parsley, I realised there was enough room for a parallel sowing of radishes. I mixed the seeds of about a dozen varieties and my daughter sowed them. Which is about the most interesting thing that can happen to radishes: I grow them but we all eat them only under protest.
I went off to find the oddity seeds but only came back with the salsify: the parsley (I discovered by reading the packet) is best started in modules and the scorzonera seeds have vanished. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll show up one day. At least less time sowing meant I had more time to set up the geese’s enclosure.
I then somehow got roped into painting the top of a wall, so I’m now a strange mix of slightly sun-tanned and dappled with white paint. Worst was to follow when I embarked on mowing the Allotment area: the mower hit a mole hill and the corner of the handlebar rebounded into my groin! Thankfully only big pig was witness to the indignity of a grown man sobbing…
A cold beer in hand and the pain is mainly a memory!
Hi Max
I love the picture you paint of “gnarly old peasant “!
I don’t like salsify but I have never tasted scorzonera.
I am having trouble with my peas at the moment. Only three have come up! I know the mice can be a problem but these have been in cardboard tubes in the greenhouse. I have just tipped them all out & no signs of them. So have sown a load more.
Mary
Hello Mary,
I hope you’ve had the same lovely weather as us today.
I suspect scorzonera tastes just the same as salsify. What didn’t you like about the taste? I recall it as subtle and dependent on the sauce! I’m most interested in the chards, it has to be said, and I think growing them on into a second year makes the roots redundant food-wise.
I’m having pea problems too. Mine are certainly down to voles – the little blighters. Is it possible yours rotted? The cold damp weather hitherto is death to peas, especially if they were pre-soaked before you sowed them. I think I’ve lost broad beans this way too.
We have to accept casualties from early sowings, I suppose, and the replacements will soon catch up.
Hi Max,
I love the idea of re-discovering old types of vegetables. It is actually shocking how few we are reduced to in the grocery stores with modern mass distribution, and of those we do have, only the varieties which travel and keep the best. I was astonished to find how many different strains(? – not sure I’m getting the vocab right here) of even the familiar veg there are.
Fantastic scan of the old book, too, love it – they truly are the best resource. When researching the acorn coffee I came across this gem from 1819 on Google Books:
http://books.google.fr/books?id=BRjcXH0NgP8C&dq=acorn%20coffee&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q&f=false
Laura
Hello Laura,
That book is a great find. I particularly enjoyed ’64. To Intoxicate and Take Fish’ That’s my kind of fishing!
I’d very much recommend this book.
It may be modern but it is a very practical guide to industrial farming unfriendly vegetables.
Haha, I hadn’t seen that 🙂 I’m curious to find out how to prevent smut in wheat, as well as why one’s milk would taste of turnips in the first place.
Thanks for the book recommendation – it is in my Amazon cart awaiting the next order!
Morning Laura –
Here’s another four!
Fantastic! And four I haven’t seen either, plus that makes five which means a full enough shopping cart that, oh darn, I have to order them right away 🙂
Ordering books on Amazon makes me ridiculously excited (well, to be fair, buying books in any manner does too)…
Hi Laura,
Normally I’d be a bit nervous about someone spending all those euros on my say so… but in this instance I’m certain your library will be enhanced by these acquisitions – far beyond the money!
So my alternative to the frying pan (the mole-man-punisher) built his little mole hill in just the right place!! Nice when a plan comes together, the secretly filmed footage will be on ‘You’ve been Framed’ later in the year!!
Yesterday we picked up the pigs and all went well, pictures on the Blog tomorrow hopefully (they are GORGEOUS)….I love little piggies.
I have never tasted salsify or the other vegetables you are talking about at the moment but I am intrigued, so will watch to see how they come on….if you find the other seeds that is!
Sue xx
Morning Sue,
The plan has worked perfectly – not just a punishment beating from the mower, but now every one of my component parts aches so much I have to have the day off I slanderously suggested you were taking in the first place!
At least it will give me a chance to find those damn seeds!
Congratulations on the new piggies. I’m dying to see the photos and to learn if they are different characters to the ones you already have… in the spirit of Mr P., prehaps..!
Seriously….you would wish a Mr P on me….!
I must have overdone it with the punishment. I hope all your ‘component parts’ feel better after your lazy Sunday!!
Lazy Sundays for us smallholders as you say are completely different from those of ‘proper’ 9-5 workers…..I’m now left wondering……… are we completely mad?
Sue xx
I prefer to think it’s merely being well-adapted in a mad world! But when your goats look at you like you’re crazy, you do have to wonder…