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Vegetables: Turnips

Keep two utensils for their thorough cleaning, a small stiff brush, and a square of rough burlap. The brush scrubs earth from every crevice. Burlap is also a splendid cleaner. Put your vegetables into cold water and rub them thoroughly with it. It will bring the skin off clean from new potatoes. Carrots, parsnips, and salsify require scraping after they have had a rubbing with the burlap. Turnips, kohl-rabi, and celeriac should be pared. Beets must be well cleansed, but not broken anywhere, not even have the tops cut, or they will "bleed," thus losing their fine sweet flavor. With most of the root vegetables, except potatoes, white and sweet, the only method for cooking is to boil them by dropping them into water at a bubbling boil. Turnips, carrots, parsnips, kohl-rabi, and celeriac will cook in half an hour if they are young and fresh; winter vegetables require from forty to sixty minutes. Young beets take an hour; old beets require boiling all day. The best way to cook them is to consign them to the fireless cooker. You can make these root vegetables as palatable as skilled French cooks do by the simple process of blanching.