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Radishes
Radishes may be obtained throughout the year. There are round and long varieties, the small round ones being considered best. They are bought in bunches, six or seven constituting a bunch. Radishes are used merely for a relish, and are served uncooked. To prepare radishes for table, remove leaves, stems, and tip end of root, scrape roots, and serve on crushed ice. Round radishes look very attractive cut to imitate tulips, when they should not be scraped; to accomplish this, begin at root end and make six incisions through skin running three-fourths length of radish. Pass knife under sections of skin, and cut down as far as incisions extend. Place in cold water, and sections of skin will fold back, giving radish a tulip-like appearance.
A serving method rather than a cooked dish, but the tulip cut still works and the details matter more than they look.
- The hinge: cold water, and timeThe cut petals only spring back because the outer skin and flesh take up water and curl. Give them at least 20-30 minutes in ice water; five minutes will not do it.
- A bunch is not a bunch anymoreThe book's bunches ran six or seven radishes. Modern supermarket bunches are usually larger, often a dozen or more small globes; figure roughly one bunch for three or four people as a relish.
- "Scrape" means peel lightlyScraping with a knife removes the thin skin and any grit. Skip it for the tulip cut, since the skin is what provides the red petals, and skip it generally with young thin-skinned radishes.
- VarietiesThe "small round ones" are the familiar red globe types, and they are still the right choice for carving. The long varieties of the period would have included types such as long scarlet and white icicle; daikon and black radish are a different proposition and are often cooked or salted as well as eaten raw.
- Freshness testThe book assumes radishes bought with leaves attached. Buy them that way when possible: perky greens are a reasonable sign the roots are freshly lifted.
- Crushed iceA bowl of crushed ice is still the best presentation, but drain the radishes well first so they do not sit in a puddle of meltwater. Ice keeps them crisp for an hour or so on the table.
- ServingSalt alongside is the usual accompaniment, and butter is the French habit; the original stops at the garnish.
Radishes appear in the vegetable chapter not as a dish but as part of the relish course, the small salted and pickled things that sat on the table through a formal American dinner alongside olives, celery and salted nuts. The carving instructions belong to the same late-Victorian impulse that produced radish roses and turnip cups: cheap ingredients elevated by knife work. The claim that radishes "may be obtained throughout the year" reflects the reach of rail shipment from the South and of glasshouse and hotbed forcing, which kept a fast-growing root on city markets out of season.