The unloved swede

"Swedes are never someone’s favourite vegetable. The new season is rarely heralded and yet they remain stout and sturdy workhorses of the English larder." Rob Andrews

There was a story in the Weekend AFR about the problems with avocado - Mexican cartels taking over farms with extortion and violence, the unseasonality of it all ... All stuff worth talking about and I will some other time, but the thing that caught my eye was how one posh London restaurant (Wildflower in Peckham) has banned avocado from the menu and is trying to be more sustainable by featuring dishes using unloved things like swede when they are in season locally. They serve a swede fondue apparently - it's a kind of dip - that is delicious. Anyway it got me to thinking about swedes, which I now really like, but which I hated as a child.

Swedes are not actually a root vegetable although they grow underground. They are the swollen base of a hybrid - a kind of cabbage (a brassica) in fact. Their closest relative - well in looks anyway is the turnip which is trendy and gourmet. Though I really don't know why because to me the turnip is amazingly tasteless. The swede however has a real and distinctive - some would say overpowering - taste.

"The swede tastes far coarser than the turnip and would not partner duck or ham so companionably. As a vehicle for butter, with haggis and whisky, it is exactly right. But after a north country upbringing, I conclude that otherwise swede is a vegetable to be avoided. The watery orange slush of school dinners was unredeemed by drainage or butter." Jane Grigson

She goes on to say she prefers the kohlrabi - also related, which Nigel Slater swears he will never buy again because it is so tasteless. I do concur with her about the swedes of school dinners though. I think my mother put them in stews - which I still do - and she may have combined them with potatoes when she mashed them - sometimes. I'm not sure about that.

"Maligned as watery orange mulch or stew fodder". AFR Weekend

The mashed potato and swedes thing is really a national Scottish dish called bashed neeps. Wonderful name. The photograph on the left is of a Delia version which includes carrots.

But back to the origins of swedes. It's called a swede - by the British and their colonies because it is a relatively new vegetable - the result of the crossbreeding of a turnip and a cabbage by a Swedish horticulturalist in the eighteenth century. It came to England from there. It is not a natural thing. In America they call it a rutabaga. In Scotland they call it neeps or tumshies and in the north of England - snadgers. Lovely names all. But that doesn't make them popular. Why? I reckon you could probably use them instead of pumpkin in all those trendy things you find these days, though they might take a little longer to cook, or instead of carrot or any other root vegetable.

These are some rather delectable looking roast sort of chips or wedges - just like people do with trendy pumpkin or sweet potato for example. They are a Delia thing.

I like to roast them with a range of root vegetables and onion in winter. But nevertheless:

"people still find them a little uninspiring or intimidating, and they can conjure a feeling of post-war austerity." Nigel Slater

I think various celebrity chefs have tried to change all this. I found Yotam Ottolenghi and Nigel Slater had a couple of interesting things - Lamb shanks with preserved lemon and swedes and something he calls a cake but which is really a gratin - Swede and parmesan cake. And he does sing its praises:

"The fact is that I do rather like swede, especially when mashed with lashings of butter and coarse black pepper, or even sliced and baked in chicken stock until it is tender enough to melt in your mouth. Cooked, I would rather eat it than carrots, which I find a little sweet." Nigel Slater

But these are all Brits. I tried to find something Australian - and delicious and Gourmet Traveller magazine had a few recipes but Stephanie Alexander and Maggie Beer seem to steadfastly ignore it, so I don't think it's going to hit the big time here.

Another interesting thing about swede. When I grew up in England it was definitely a food associated with the poor - well it was cheap. But it is never cheap here. Not that it's all that expensive - just not cheap. Which is probably a case of supply and demand. Not popular so not a lot grown and so the market is not flooded. Maybe it will become so expensive and so exclusive that it will actually become trendy. I'm not holding my breath though.

I'll leave the last word to Bert Greene who is obviously not agreeing with Jane Grigson and bacon. Yotam Ottolenghi too seems to thing it goes well with bacon.

"The entire apartment was suffused with the most intoxicating perfume I think I have ever inhaled: rutabaga braising to a dull tarnished gold in a bath that would give any alchemist joy - onions, red wine, and bits of bacon." Bert Greene