"This is, perhaps, the reason that it’s sometimes called a Swedish turnip or simply a swede. Dense and sweetly earthy, a spheroid that can grow to the size of a human head, with a mottled, brown-and-white surface and a buttery, yellow interior, the rutabaga looks like an overgrown turnip—which it is, sort of, at least on its mother’s side. A reproductive quirk of the Brassica genus allows for uncommonly easy hybridization (see the evidence in your local grocery store: kalettes, the frilly little greens that were 2014’s sexy new vegetable, are a cross between kale and Brussels sprouts). Somewhere, in the misty meadows of Central Europe, a turnip got frisky with a cabbage, and the rutabaga was born. This genetic history was confirmed only recently, in 1935, by the Korean-Japanese agricultural scientist Woo Jang-choon. But, three hundred years before, Bauhin, with his eye for botanical detail, saw to name the plant napobrassica, the turnip-cabbage."
From "What Rutabaga Does Better Than Anything Else" (The New Yorker).
I might buy a rutabaga and attempt to make the recipe for Rutabaga Noodles Cacio e Pepe. But if I do, playing in my head the entire time I'm making it will be the yodeling section of "Call Any Vegetable."
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It's planting season in Hooterville, but Oliver doesn't know what to grow. After testing the soil, he discovers Hooterville is perfect for growing rutabagas. The locals are overcome with rutabaga fever, going so far as to plan a "Rutabaga Bowl". To spread the word, Lisa is sent up in a hot air balloon to drop vegetables on people with the message "Eat Hooterville Rutabagas" written on them.
Oliver Wendell Douglas: What is wrong with the people of this community? I had a simple idea about raising rutabagas. The next thing I know, Ziffel is trying to get CBS to send him color cameras, Trendell is trying to get the U.S.C. football team, and Newt is calling Sophia Loren to be a Rutabaga Queen! This is absurd!
Sam Drucker: That's what I told 'em, but they get carried away.
Oliver Wendell Douglas: They sure do!
Sam Drucker: Yeah. I wonder why Ed Sullivan hasn't called me back?
"what a great idea!" - Arthur Carlson
I think it was rutabaga's that Oliver and Lisa tried to farm in the classic TV comedy series "Green Acres."
Oops. Mezzrow beat me to it.
I bought my canoes at Rutabaga
Whenever I buy rutabega the cashier asks what they are. Not a big seller I suppose.
My mom spent most of 1944-45 on a remote farm in Norway. She was 9 years old and the Red Cross had sent kids out of ther city because she lived near a German u-boat base which was often bombed. Food was scarce but the farm had a cellar full of rutabega (kålrabi) and she was allowed to eat all she wanted, raw. She still likes it.
Frank Zappa's Call Any Vegetable has a chorus of Rutabaga beginning at 1:57.
But if I do, playing in my head the entire time I'm making it will be the yodeling section of "Call Any Vegetable."
Guess I should read the whole article. before I comment. Oh well.
I've got something for The New Yorker that's dense and sweetly earthy that can grow to the size of a human head.
I like rutabagas. I sneak them into the soup or stew whenever my wife isn't looking. She likes them too, if she doesn't know what they are.
It may be the name. Thanks for etymology, AA! I have often wondered about it.
I wish I could get them without the thick wax on them, which is how the stores sell them around here. The guy on New Scandanavian Cooking roasted them covered with salt. I bet that would be good. I'll try that, if I ever find one that is clean.
I suppose I could try growing them, if it comes to that.
Somewhere, in the misty meadows of Central Europe, a turnip got frisky with a cabbage, and the rutabaga was born. This genetic history was confirmed only recently, in 1935, by the Korean-Japanese agricultural scientist Woo Jang-choon.
This sounds like my father's definition of recently.
Toss me a carot!
My dad called them “pie plant”
A few years ago a joke book was banned from British school libraries for this terrible racist joke:
"Have you heard of the vegetarian cannibal? He only eats swedes!"
Also, mesquito (6:04pm): Are you sure your mother was eating rutabagas? The word you give in brackets (kålrabi) looks like the English name of a whole different vegetable: kohlrabi. Of course, even if the Swedish name is rutabaga, it's possible that Norwegians call it by a different name which we use for a different vegetable. Languages are messy.
These are the standard root veg on Thanksgiving at my house. Chopped up and boiled, then mashed like potatoes with lots of butter. Even better the next day fried up in a cast iron skillet, again, with lots of butter.
Another now under-utilized root vegetable is the parsnip. Delicious when roasted on a charcoal grill.
Remember the old English saying "Fancy words butter no parsnips"?
Back when we did a CSA, we'd get Rutabagas in late fall, and they were always welcome and delicious. Never tried to make noodles, that seems unnecessarily fussy to me. Just cube them and roast them.
They're also great in Chicken Pot Pie.
In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, specifically the western end (the so-called "Copper Country") a favorite food item is the pasty, which often contains rutabagas. Tasty!
The Norwegian word is kålrabi. I was much puzzled about this "rutabaga" name here in the U.S., and even more so when I saw kohlrabi used for a very different kind of vegetable.
Can't say I ever got fond of it, though slices may be eaten raw if you are hungry enough, and it is often cut up into small chunks or pureed and with some condiments added is not all that bad as a vegetable filler.
They are very low carb and are touted as a potato substitute. They're ok, but I am here to report that nothing substitutes for potatoes. Sigh.
Au contraire, YoungHegelian:
The parsnip, children, I repeat,
Is simply an anaemic beet.
Some people call the parsnip edible;
Myself, I find this claim incredible.
--Ogden Nash
I grew up having rutabaga every Thanksgiving. The first time my wife and I went shopping for Thanksgiving I asked where the turnips were and was directed to these tiny little things. Described what I was looking for to the clerk, and he said "Rutabaga. That's what you want." and took me right to them. Apparently it goes by different names in different areas. Most people I know have never had it. I know the cashier I talk to most frequently has never had it.
Peel it, cut it up, boil, and mash just like potatoes. But with a different flavor. Takes longer to cook.
Just this last year I cooked white turnip for the first time. Turnip floats in the boiling water, rutabaga and potatoes don't. Tastes pretty good, not as strong a taste as rutabaga. I have to drain the water off after mashing them...
Pretty much all the root vegetables, potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets, whatever, are good for the body. Ordinary white potatoes have the highest glycemic index among them.
I live in a potato growing area now. It was attending the annual Potatofest that I learned about muck potatoes and dryland potatoes. Muck potatoes are good for mashing, dryland much better for french fries.
I've long since noticed most people, me included, eat only a small variety of the fruits and vegetables available at the local Wegmans, which has by far the best produce section of any supermarket chain I've shopped at. But yet- they all sell. Dragonfruit, kale, turnip, beets, avocado, star fruit, at least a dozen varieties of melon over the course of a year, most the locally available apple varieties, and a bunch or potato choices. It's good to have choices. Brought to you by good old fashioned capitalism. Central planners would decide which ones were best for us, and that's all farmers would be allowed to produce. And they'd probably be wrong about which were best....
You want Matthew to go, "Full Rutabaga," eh? Ok. It is on. Consider it, "on."
As Hagar said, it's called Kålrabi in Norway and I believe that word is also used in English as well some places in the US.
It's fairly common with traditional dishes here, often mashed, liked mashed potatoes. I like the taste if spiced correctly.
IMPORTANT COOKING TIP for rutabaga ... the skin is rather bitter and if not removed completely can spoil the whole dish. Using a stout chef's knife, cut off the top, then slice the root into rounds about 1/2 thick. Discard the top and the bottom part.
Look at a round slice. Notice that there is a paler band about 1/8th inch thick all the way around. That band is the bitter part. Take a sharp, strong paring knife and peel that bitter band completely, all the way around and set that curly skin -- almost a rind, really -- aside. Peel all the pieces that way.
On a clean carving board, meaning free of any wax used to coat the rutabaga, dice the slice into 1/2-inch cubes. From there use them however you'd like. Here's my favorite: Drop the cubes into salted boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain and then dump into a fry-pan (cast iron is best) with a good coating is sizzling butter. Fry the rutabaga cubes for a couple of minutes, then add about 4 oz of Belgian-style beer, preferably not a hoppy one; i.e. low-IBUs. Add a dash or two of nutmeg to taste, cook down the beer and butter to a nice sauce, top with black pepper to taste and enjoy, along with any of the beer you've not yet consumed.
Sometimes I've had an entire supper of that dish. Not uncommonly, however, the meal includes rye bread, gouda cheese, and pickled herring. Another beer, of course, because the fish has to swim in something.
Oh, the lowly rutabaga...which was served mashed with roast beef and turkey. A Thanksgiving staple. Called them yellow turnips. Other than my mother-in-law and I nobody else liked them and I still buy a small frozen mashed package just for me when we're having either of the above. Also, I remember a childhood counting song from 20 on down to one, to wit "15 rutabagas, 15 rutabagas, 15 rutabagas, buy...now...5 and 15 make a score, buy until we'll have no more..." Love all the root vegetables, especially rutas and parsnips.
My late mother almost always made mashed rutabagas for the holiday season meals and I love them. As she died in 2017, I have made a goal of learning to make them myself in the near future as part of continuing her Scandinavian (Swedish/Danish) heritage. This was a great topic!
My mother in law used to say to my husband when she was bathing him, 'let's clean behind your ears! I think I see rutabagas growing back there!' I continue it with our little ones. The two year old loves the word 'rutabaga.'
My mother always used to include rutabaga in stews she made. It is also great with carrots and potatoes with pot roast. My wife, unfortunately, does not like the smell of cooking rutabaga so we don't have it to often.
Tried to choke down some "kohlrabi noodles" last night. If these noodles you speak of are anything like last night's noodles, I advise you to have a Plan B for dinner.
Rutabaga is one of those words/concepts/things that one suspects was concocted in a writers' room of a sitcom. It's like lumbago. Up until I saw it in the dictionary, I thought it was entirely possible that it was made-up. Same thing with place names. I've been to Walla Walla. It's real. But, like Waukegan and Altoona, it sounds more like a gag than a real place.
"Baggy root?" Per Wikipedia, rutabaga "comes from the Swedish dialectal word rotabagge,[2] from rot (root) + bagge (short, stumpy object)." (I recall seeing a Graham Kerr show where he was preparing rutabaga and he said it meant "round root," which fits better than "baggy.")
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