Plants I’ve Known and Loved-Snippets from a Gardener, Traveller and Gourmand

Turnips

Turnips are not held in very high esteem by the British as a vegetable and more is the pity. Perhaps this dates back to the 18^th century and ‘Turnip’ Townsend’s four field system of crop rotation which he began in Norfolk where turnips were grown over the winter to feed livestock.

The system was so successful that yields of all crops increased rapidly but perhaps meant that the turnip was pigeon-holed as not suitable for human consumption. Despite this when turnip greens are sold in Tooting vegetable sellers they are called English saag(spinach) a name I like very much although the turnips sold in Peckham Rye look less appealing. Rather like the devils balls you have to wonder where they have been before they arrived at the market.

Looking at those over-sized turnips rolling around in the detritus of a busy, urban place such as Peckham I can see why Sylvia Plath described them as ‘mute as a turnip’. But maybe she might have written poetically about them in the exotic surroundings of Peckham Rye with its sweetmeat and vegetable sellers, chaai-wallers, holy men and cheap cabs in a quasi-Kipling style.

The French, who call them navets, eat them in a delicious white sauce and the Portuguese use the tops in that warming winter soup of Caldo verde with potatoes, onions and bacon. Even the Americans are fond of them and probably have their boiled and buttered collard greens, which is what they call them, as in some Woody Allen fantasy, with freshly caught catfish fried near the swimming hole with Mary Lou or as  a side dish with deep fried chicken. Americans are famous for bastardizing other foods so I think I’m allowed to be a bit creative with the interpretation of authenticity in their food culture.

It was probably Baldrick, perhaps the most famous peasant scullion to have graced our screens, in the historically based TV series Blackadder which straddled the 1990s that put the final nail in the coffin of the hopes of turnips becoming fashionable. Baldrick was more than a little obsessed with buying a ‘Nice little turnip in the country..’ and when he spends the money Blackadder has persuaded the gullible Prince George the third to give him on a massive turnip Blackadder, in disgust, sticks it on his head. Such images definitely did influence popular culture back then when we were young but things are different now and perhaps with an uptick of interest in vegetarianism the humble turnip is due some sort of renaissance.

Marigolds

Among gardeners there is a certain amount of snobbery directed at marigolds and it is definitely a feeling I share to a large degree. In fact the huge bauble like marigolds of blindingly bright orange are the epitome of bad taste.

But perhaps the one saving grace of the marigold is that it is revered as a holy flower in Hindu culture and at the Day of the Dead festival in Central America. I often think of a TV programme called Ganges where I saw pilgrims being given necklaces of marigolds by the brahmins, in Benares, and containers of marigolds and candles floating down that holiest of rivers. The following scene in Ganges captured an extremely moving procession led by these aforementioned holy men with very spiritual chanting in it. So perhaps its more a question of the right plant for the right place. But definitely those fake British gardens with rows of tasteless flowers that pop up in the hill stations of India, as a reminder of the days of the Raj, are the wrong place.

The pot marigold is also revered in Christian culture as a symbol of the Virgin Mary to decorate church altars. Its latin name Calendula comes from the latin calendae meaning first day of the month because it bloomed every month of the year thus being useful for supplying the altar throughout the year. It is also known as the pot marigold because it was used as a cheap alternative to saffron in cooking.

Despite these positives the African marigold really is pretty dreadful and I fantasized that a top garden designer would attempt to convert his rich and tasteless clients into thinking that it was the must have plant to have in their gardens. This is what the character Miss Featherstone did in her column in a leading newspaper in Apartheid South Africa, in Tom Sharpe’s hilarious fictional book Riotous Assembly. Because she was an English aristo they assumed she had impeccable taste but because she thought the South Africans who read her column were very stupid to believe in Apartheid she created the most tasteless interior design tips for her readers because she guessed they did not have the sense to realize in what bad taste they were.

Of course I don’t treat my clients like fools. If they have the money to pay me invariably they have been successful in some field but usually because of the urban nature of the West have rarely done any gardening. The problem with that is that gardening is a creative science so there are not always distinct right or wrong answers to a question in the garden. Also, it is extremely pleasant to have some scope for creativity like a musician improvising….it can go wrong or can be the star of the show. Planting snakes-head fritillary bulbs in the lawn is a simple and not entirely original idea but it looks beautiful for that spring before the lawnmower says ‘ off with their heads’ Henry viii style in May.

Cucumbers

A not very interesting but little known fact about me is that both my flatmates have been Kiwis (New Zealanders) and both have absolutely hated cucumbers. No bad thing you might say given the questionable circumstances in which certain people, whose anonymity is very important to them, have ended up in A and E. Similarly, in Michael Palin’s semi-autobiographical film East of Ipswich: about the Suffolk seaside resort of Southwold in the repressed atmosphere of the 1950s, the only thing seemingly available at the guesthouse the main character is staying in is ironically cucumbers.

That being said I actually love cucumbers…to eat, I mean. In fact, it might form an important part of my favourite English summer menu of poached salmon and fresh mayonnaise, boiled pink fir apple potatoes and lightly dressed raw cucumber salad without its skin followed by the quintessentially English pudding of Cambridge Favourite strawberries, a little sugar and lemon juice and thick Jersey double cream.

I take it Roald Dahl didn’t like the cucumber when he created the snozzcumber as the disgusting vegetable that the Big Friendly Giant(BFG) eats in the book of  the same name. Certainly it is not nearly as delicious sounding as the BFG’s beverage of choice, Frobscottle, which tasted of a delicious mixture of raspberries, vanilla etc. I can understand with its spiny skin and bland taste why cucumbers aren’t peoples’ favourite vegetable but this demonization of it as the devil’s plaything does seem a little harsh in a culinary sense anyway……rather like comparing aubergines to cockroaches.

This summer I had deliciously cooling salads and beetroot soups in Lithuania and Poland of cucumber,dill and yoghurt in some very ordinary looking Lithuanian and Polish cafeterias that would stand toe to toe with the more famous Spanish salads and cold soups such as gazpacho and salmorejo.

And that is to say nothing of the most famous use of the cucumber, certainly in England, but possibly the world of the cucumber sandwiches served for afternoon tea. Victorian gentleman were so concerned by the reputation of these cucumber sandwiches for causing excess wind, perhaps because they did not share the BFG’s love of whizz-popping that it was not until a ‘Burpless’ variety was developed that they felt secure in eating those peculiarly English sandwiches without the fear of letting out a profondo belch.