I mentioned to someone younger than me the other day that I grew up eating Swedes and he looked perplexed. “As in Swedish people?” he asked. “No, the vegetable,” I replied. He’d never heard of it. “Like a Turnip?” I ventured, sure that one of our nation’s staple foods would be familiar to him. “Nope. What’s a turnip?”
“Well, what about Kale,” I tried, “You must have heard of that vegetable?” No luck there either. I was beginning to sound my age, speaking about the post-war diet in rural Cornwall. Suddenly aware that I might just as well have been talking about threepenny bits and ten-bob notes I threw in a “Bet you’ve never heard of Mangolds either?” Now he was really confused.
I am not from another country, I am from Cornwall. And when you live in a place you eat what the soil produces. But maybe England was another country before the infestation of supermarkets put paid to local vegetable growers. And maybe Cornwall, situated at the end of a long southernmost finger of England jutting into the Atlantic, got international and frozen foods last of all.
So by the time I joined a Krishna commune there were foods I was accustomed to eating – which many others had never eaten – and foods I had never even seen, what to speak of tasted.
I had never had spinach, for instance. It was the stuff of Popeye cartoons and had almost legendary qualities of being able to make you big and strong, and fight like a he-man, but I’d never had it. And I had never even seen olives, avocados, or mangoes. I was 25 years old before I even heard the word ‘pizza.’
But I never felt I was deprived because of these dietary mysteries. I am over six feet tall so the Turnips and Swedes and Kale must have done me good. I can’t remember the last time I ate a turnip now, but if the recession really bites us all hard in 2009 – as we’re being told - we might see much more of them.
Here, for my dear readers, is a selection of those ‘lost’ English vegetables:
Swedes
…and Turnips. OK, so they don’t look much different to Swedes, but they taste different. One is cream inside the other golden. I forget which..
And Kale. All the above were regularly fed to the local cows, which might have been why they were in plentiful supply.
Very interesting and informative article.We get turnips here at Coimbatore and Kale looks like broccoli which I have seen but swedes is new.Ihave not heard of it.Is it sweet like beetroot?
It is funny that you called them English vegetables.We call them so ,too. Even 15 years back, especially around Thiruvathirai [a Saivite Festival] and Makara Sankaranthi,when we make an offering of a dish with 5, 7 or 9 vegetables, we have to take special care that only native vegetables are chosen.While the yellow pumpkin is considered native [maybe because it is very like the Ash gourd aka white pumpkin] ; carrots and cabbages are considered almost native, while radish and cauliflower are still English.
Hari Om
do swedes double as rutabagas? i guess i will have to google it.
we love kale. i put it in our soup yesterday and my daughter couldn’t get enough of it. but then again, it is quite possible she was a cow in her last life.
thanks for this post. a real eye opener!!!
Hare Krishna Kripamoya prabhu. These may be some helpful hints re root vegetable uses. The Swede is yellow inside and Turnips (neeps) are white inside. Whilst Swedes are best boiled and mashed, seasoned with butter and black pepper, they also make a lovely mash with potatoes.
The unfashionable turnip, is nutritious, and quicker to cook and rather similar to mooli. It can be boiled, baked, roasted, fried and used in soups.
Confusingly perhaps, our lovely yellow swede, is known as a turnip in Ireland !
And , I believe Swedes originated in Sweden.
Happy cooking
Madhuri devi dasi
Kale scores extremely high on the nutritional scale, everyone should include it in their diet.
This organization might interest you: http://www.seedsavers.org/
It’s an organization that works to save heirloom varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
I agree with you sir. I now what you mean , when I eat for the first times in de Krisna mandir I also dont now what they put on my plate
There is such a great variety of local vegetables available, and it’s such a great pleasure to have a stroll on a farmers market with the purpose to surprise Their Lordships with a lovely offering of excellent fresh prepared prasadam. The maintenance of our material bodies with local grown ingredients is simply the healthiest path we can take on, and all seasonal varieties give us the complete nutrition required to adapt our system efficient with all vedic principles and regulations in order to serve all vaisnava’s and especially Krishna in its best shape and manner.
Thank you so much for this great inspiring article. It might encourage even more devotees to avoid industrial produced supermarket stuff, and look out for the fresh organic experience…
These vegetables are great, try a mash of swede carrots and parsnips with butter and black pepper. or a combination of any two.. Hare Krishna!
Peter