Where have you been?
I’ve never been to Russia, but I’ve grown beets just like Russian gardeners. According to folks who count things, Russian farms and gardens produce 50 million tons of beets annually which, divided evenly among a population of approximately 145 million, means each resident would get a third of a ton per year except that most of it is exported to China, Turkey and beyond.
Most of those beets are sugarbeets which, compared to beets I grow, are much larger, usually carrot-shaped and white. They are long and chunky, and folks who know how can get a cup of sugar out of a big, fat sugarbeet. This year, I used less than a cup of sugar in a few pints of pickles and that’s all, so one sugarbeet per year is plenty sugar for me, and I’ll need to learn how to find the sugar in there. Maybe a cube of sugarbeet in each jar of pickles? Or maybe pickle the beet.
Can you make borscht from sugarbeets? Probably, because you can make wine from parsnips. A friend once recounted how his whimsical aunt in the middle of England grew parsnips so she could use them to make wine. Apparently tastes like sherry. Twice I’ve been on planes that landed in England, but I barely found my connecting flight, so no parsnip wine for me. I’ve grown parsnips a few times, and my vague memory says they were like white carrots, not as sweet, and that’s okay. When I think of England, I think of parsnips… and George Harrison.
The Netherlands grows and exports more parsnips than anyone. They are native to central Europe. I’ve been to Germany and saw die Pastinaken in das Lebensmittelgeschaft. One source said Italian farmers feed parsnips to pigs to flavor the eventual ham… not me. Michigan and Oregon grow parsnips commercially, and whimsical aunts make the wine. I’ve been to Oregon but ate marionberries instead of parsnips.
Speaking of Germany, beets are the second-most popular vegetable behind tomatoes. However, a mere 3700 miles east-southeast from Germany is the country of Georgia where beets and parsnips are missing from the top thirty list of favorites. Everybody is different. Georgians prefer carrots, corn and my year-round favorite, garlic.
Due south of Georgia is Azerbaijan where the traditional favorites are eggplants, sweet peppers and tomatoes. Dang insect pests make it difficult to grow eggplants in my garden in northern Madison County, a mere 11,000 miles from the markets of Baku.
Did you know some eggplant varieties are bitter on purpose? Gbomo is a popular eggplant variety in Togo, and even the leaves are bitter, but folks chop them into stir-fries. Okra is also popular in Togo just like in northwest Arkansas, but I’ve never been to Togo. Main exports from Togo are coffee and cocoa, tariff amounts vary monthly.
I’d like to try dark roast Togo coffee, but in the meantime, I brewed coffee from a happy local merchant. The package did not say, “Definitely not from Togo,” so who knows. We don’t always know where things come from.
I’d also like parsnips from Amsterdam or beets from a small happy village in central Russia. There are homegrown favorites everywhere. For an exotic vegetable adventure, you could attend the Night of the Radishes Festival in Oaxaca City, Mexico later this month.
Or, closer to home, wait ‘til summer break and visit the Louisiana Peach Festival in early June followed by wandering town to town in southern Arkansas eating watermelons. There is even a watermelon festival in Cave Springs in late July. Then hustle out to Gilroy Calif., for their Garlic Festival followed by a quick zip north to Sebastopol for the Gravenstein Apple Fair in early August.
If you’re not up for travel, never fear… there are farmers’ markets in almost every nearby town. Eureka Springs has an excellent one (year ‘round!) deserving of support. Support locals. Maybe they have parsnips.