A radish note

[redbird]

The interesting radish I had from the Somerville winter farmers market is a "starburst radish," according to the vendor, who also said it's a variety of daikon, and that the name was unlikely to help me find it elsewhere. (This assumes that what we bought two weeks ago and still have half of is the same variety the vendor gave me a sample of yesterday; it's possible that what I had earlier was the one he called "watermelon.")

Interesting in this context means flavorful, in a peppery direction, but not too spicy for me to eat; most radishes I see, however pretty, are very bland. This guy has some too hot for me to eat. He likes to hand out sample slices to anyone passing by, of radishes and carrots (and possibly other root vegetables).

The vendor also said he'd talked to Whole Foods about them carrying some of his radishes, but nothing had been settled.

ETA: I just looked in the vegetable drawer, and I think the one we have now is purpler than what I tried yesterday. Clearly, when I need more radishes I will have to ask for another sample.

Comments

[miss_s_b]

Oh I LOVE really peppery radishes

[pinesandmaples]

Sounds like the Chinese Red Meat Radish, which my ex was very fond of growing.

[redbird]

That's definitely one of the ones I tasted; I'm not sure if it's either the one I have now (which is a bit purpler) or the one I tasted yesterday. I'm tempted to bookmark this, though, in case I ever have a garden again. (When I had one in Arlington, all I got from my radish seeds was some pretty flowers, not edible roots, but that was a French variety.)

[pinesandmaples]

Baker Creek (linked above as rareseeds.com) is basically the best out there for weird, unusual, and diverse seeds.

The other kind of radish you should look out for, merely for interest's sake, is a rat-tail or serpent radish. Pleasant flavor, unusual fruit.

[redbird]

Baker Creek is actually where I got the one that didn't work well for me; knowing which of the fifteen or twenty radish varieties in their catalog I want to try growing next may prove useful. It hadn't occurred to me to try a daikon radish, since I'm used to the very mild white daikon that's served with sashimi.

I actually found Baker Creek because I was looking for a source of Paul Robeson tomato seeds, but I placed the order too late: that's one of the slower-growing varieties. I tried it when we were living in Bellevue, Wash., partly for the name, and liked it enough that I started buying mostly that and Black Krim when the farmer had those. (Why do farmers who label all their apple bins with "Jonathan" or "Cox's Orange Pippin" think "heirloom" is a sufficient description of a tomato?)

[pinesandmaples]

Black Krim and Caspian Pinks are my favorite tomatoes.

(Why do farmers who label all their apple bins with "Jonathan" or "Cox's Orange Pippin" think "heirloom" is a sufficient description of a tomato?)

SERIOUSLY.
There is a vender at one of the markets in Atlanta who gets really wild about his tomatoes, which I appreciate. He actually groups his table by color so it's a gradient then he labels them all by both name and origin of varietal. Tomato nerds unite.

[redbird]

One of the things I liked about the farmers market in Bellevue was the tomato farmer who labeled all his tomatoes by variety, whether it was an heirloom like Mortgage Lifter or Paul Robeson, or the Beefsteak tomatoes that tend to be at the supermarket. I think theirs were grouped by color as well: the Paul Robesons were definitely near the Black Krim. Come to think of it, so does the farm that comes to the markets I go to here that labels the tomatoes by variety.

The downside of grouping by color is that the tomatoes in adjacent bins may look a lot alike, and sometimes someone picks up a tomato, looks at it, and puts it back in the wrong box. Taxi looks more like Yellow Brandywine than Pink Brandywine does. (I've occasionally gotten a misidentified apple that way, as well.)

There were other farms in Washington that just labeled the boxes "heirloom tomatoes," and there are some in the Boston area that label the varieties, and others who just say "heirloom." The really lumpy or irregular tomatoes seem to be more likely to be in boxes that just say "heirloom": I suspect some people assume that those irregularities are inherent in the older, usually more flavorful varieties. (Supermarket "heirloom tomatoes" tend to be lumpier than either their non-heirloom tomatoes or the sold-by-variety heirloom tomatoes I see at the farmers market.)

[editrx]

Not sure what they have for radishes, but I buy a lot of heirloom and rare seeds from John Scheepers