Radish

At the beginning of the season in May, radishes add a bit of color and spice to our weekly shares.

Cooking Tips

Radishes taste great raw. Try slicing them or shredding them on a salad, adding them to a slaw, or making a salad of just radishes. Radishes can also be cooked. Try steaming quartered radishes for five to ten minutes, or substituting them for turnips in recipes. Pickled radishes are tasty served with Mexican food, and a fun experiment in pickling. Radish greens are edible, too, and can be sautéed and eaten much like turnip greens.

Storage Tips

Kept in a plastic bag in the fridge, radishes will last for up to two weeks.

Nutrition

Radishes are rich in ascorbic acid, folic acid, potassium, vitamin B6, riboflavin, magnesium, copper, and calcium. They are also often prescribed in alternative medicine for coughs, cancer, liver problems, arthritis, and constipation.

History

Radishes are a Brassica plant in the cabbage family, like many other common vegetables we eat. The origins of the radish are a bit of a mystery, there is very little archaeological information about their early cultivation. Radishes were definitely common by the time of Hellenist Greece, however, where their name in Greek meant "quickly appearing". Indeed, radishes are an excellent spring crop, because they grow from seed to mature root in a matter of just a few weeks. Our English word for radishes comes from the Latin word "radix", meaning "root".