This Christmas season I've thought a lot about the gift of vegetables and root vegetables in particular.
Amidst the peeling of twenty plus pounds of potatoes, I pondered how that earthy, yet to be washed potato peel scent is such a grounding one, rooting so much of our existence and sustenance in earth.
And how, the quality of the earth that root vegetables are grown in both reflects and affects the quality of the civilization growing them.
How well the soil is determines how well we all are.
I thought about how so much depends on growing food and how keeping it local, as the new climate crisis demands of us, will increasingly require us to eat largely that which has been grown in our own bioregion which supports that food's growth.
I am largely Celtic in my ancestry, and therefore come from a long history of root vegetable eating fore bearers.
Potato, turnip and carrots are literally foods which I could and largely do, live on. These and winter squash and sweet potato too.
Last eve, in preparation for heading to my parent's for Christmas dinner leftovers two days following their sumptuous Christmas feast I knew that the only vegetable in low quantity following dinner was turnip and so I took a turnip from my veggie bin and promptly peeled and chopped it and set it in water to boil.
As my oldest daughter and I sat in the living room basking in the low light of our Christmas tree and in the quiet of a house largely unoccupied at that moment, I caught the wafting aroma of boiled turnip floating in from the kitchen and my heart became so glad. Gladdened by the soft, pungent aroma of a vegetable my ancestors would have eaten to sustain themselves through long cold winters both on PEI and years ago and far away in Ireland and Scotland.
I contemplated how I almost never get to enjoy just the turnip fragrance alone due to only cooking it in the company of so many other stove top root vegetables and alongside something roasting in the oven. Something roasting like red cabbage, peppers and chickpeas done in olive oil and sea salt.
Delicious and warming all!
Perhaps the turnip waft was so welcoming because I love mashed turnip so much yet never really notice it cooking.
Besides, who cooks turnip by itself?
Even though I especially love it mashed, I even eat turnip fried crisp with carrots sometimes as a leftover, well salted and peppered. And raw in summertime, the Japanese white turnip or Hakurei, my favourite, refreshing summertime vegetable crunch.
And so I bow in gratefulness for root veggies. The staple of so many winter meals and so humble as to hardly draw attention. I am thankful for these foods which keep us hearty and hale and store so well through winter's storms and cold.
As this decade comes to a close and a new one nears its dawning, may we all slow down our lives enough to contemplate how to better honour Earth and each other.
Eating organic, plastic wrap free, locally grown root vegetables more often is always a good place to begin.
Happy New Year!
In warmth and hopefulness,
Jill