Rutabaga

October 20th, 2019

Turnips for supper
(or Rutabaga if you must...)

I love their sweetness!

One year, when we were still farming 

and into planting vegetables,

as well as harvesting fruit,

we planted seven miles of rutabagas...

up one row and down another,

up another, and down the next

until we had completed seven miles of turnips.

We got a good price for them, too!

It was late in the season when we planted them,

probably  the end of July,

and we harvested them with the first frost.

Some in the family don't like turnips,

but I love them.

Somewhere I have a picture of Charles

cutting and tailoring the Rutabaga for market

to lend a bit of elegance to this homey vegetable

(I think perhaps it was on the movie camera  -

I seem to remember his movements, his grin,

and Candy, our favourite dog, coming to see

what he might be doing)

I ran across this little poem tonight,. by Laura Grace Weldon

who I think might have had the same fondness for 

rutabagas as I had, and that I encouraged amongst the children

although there are still some whose face goes

all funny when you mention 'turnips'

Rutabagas

 "you darken as my knife slices

blushing at what you become

I save your thick leaves,

your purple skin

to feed the cows.

A peasant guest at any meal

you agree to hide in fragrant stew

or gleam nakedly

in butter and chives

Though your seeds are tiny

you grow with fierce will

grateful for poor soil and dry days,

heave up from the ground

under sheltering stalks

and wait to sweeten with the frost.

Tonight we take you into our bodies

as if we do you a favor,

letting your molecules

become as higher being,

one that knows music and art.

But you share with us

what makes you a rutabaga.

Through you we eat sunlight,

taste the soil's clamoring mysteries,

gain your seed's perfect might."

There is enough left for supper tomorrow night..

mashed, and maybe heated with a

little butter and brown sugar.