The importance of being a turnip

I am frankly disgusted: it has not been a good year for the turnip (Brasica Rapa Subsp. Rapa). As beautiful as they look like in the market, your dissection in the kitchen reveals invariably cavernous, brown, dry and fibrous interiors – anything but appetizing.
I am immensely appreciated this vegetable of the Brassic Family (relative close to the kale, but also of the radish, arugula and the mustard), both by its white root, tinged tinged with pink and violet – the turnip itself (in the image, Odilon Redon oil, c. 1875, Orsay Museum) – as by the lush green leaves (the so -called nabites). Of European origin, it was already part of human food even before the appearance of agriculture, 10,000 or 12,000 years ago. Its consumption remained high in Europe until the eighteenth century, when it began to give way to the potato.
Of subtly earthy flavor, slightly sweet and with a spicy touch (denouncing the genetic proximity to mustard, whose seeds are rich in alilo isotocyanate, an organic compound containing sulfur and nitrogen, such as the maxor or his Japanese relative, the Wasabi), when sailed or baked the turnip still acquires naso notes, thanks to the nas. compounds formed during a chemical process known as Maillard reaction. Under the action of heat, sugars such as glucose and fructose react with amino acids (the constituent blocks of proteins) forming melanoidins – compounds of brownish color, with characteristic aromas and flavors. It is this same reaction that gives the golden tone to bread and chips, and gives the roasted coffee its unmistakable fragrance.
I confess that I do not know why this vegetable has no quality this year. Is it due to the turnip mosaic virus? Transmitted by insects such as aphids, this virus can represent a serious phytosanitary problem. The infection manifests the appearance of yellow spots on the leaves, which become wrinkled and deformed, while the underground part of the plant has poor growth. However, it does not seem to me that this is the problem: the branch remains beautiful and the roots at first glance seem normal. It is well known that this botanical species appreciate humidity – as the proverb says: ‘Sun in thin and rain in Nabal! -But, in fact, there was no great shortage of precipitation during the winter. Can you then be an effect on climate change? I lean into this hypothesis.
If, in Portuguese, calling ‘turnip’ to someone is insinuating lack of way or incompetence, in French, Un Navet (a turnip) has become a colloquial designation for a poor quality movie. Due to its accessibility, this vegetable was traditionally consumed mainly by the humblest classes and animals, which is why it has always been associated with something of little value – a perception that world literature did not fail to reflect. In The Useless Beauty, published in 1890, Guy de Maupassant criticizes society and the human condition, using food as a metaphor of the struggle for survival and seeking meaning in a world indifferent to man: “As cabbage and carrots, it is worth God, onions, turnips and rabanetes, because we were forced to get used to it, until it is to enjoy the flavor, but this is food and goat food. Wheat is for birds, meats are for large carnivores and prey animals. We celebrate them after cooking them, seasoning them with truffles, because we need to live in this world that was not made for man. »
Similarly, John Steinbeck, in The Vineyards of Ira (1939), also uses the image of sustenance as a symbol of struggle desperate for survival in a context of social injustice and scarcity: “From time to time someone tried; He crawled down the earth, pulled his bush to tease, and tried, like a thief, to steal to Earth some of his wealth. Clandestine gardens, in the woods. A handful of carrots seeds, some turnip and potatoes. Staring, he went out at night and prepared the stolen piece of land. ‘
The Nabo Statute will, however, have known any rise. It is a fact that today’s great chefs have promoted it to levels never before imagined: mousselines, foams, confits, chutneys and knows God that more. For my part, I’m still waiting for the promised turnipides that my friend Fatima, Alentejo de Gema, promised me to do.

Chemical