A Valentine Radish

Pat — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:12:40 +0000

Beauty Heart Radish

It seemed only appropriate to serve Beauty Heart radish at our Valentine’s dinner.

We were introduced to the beautiful pinky red radishes when we were living in Beijing where it is very popular. Members of my Women of China work unit brought some pickled Xin Li Mei radish to a picnic outing. They called it Beauty Heart which I much prefer to Red Meat, as it is sometimes called in seed catalogs. It is also called Watermelon radish for its ‘large’ size, green skin and red interior.

I have not been successful in growing Beauty Heart radish. I think my growing season is too short and cool. My book, Oriental Vegetables: The Complete Guide for Garden and Kitchen by Joy Larkcom, says that it needs several months of warm weather, beginning when temperatures are reliably above 60 degrees. They are ready for harvest in about 80 days. She makes the point that growing them in an unheated hoop house provides ideal conditions. That explains why the Beauty Hearts I bought at Winterfare from Red Fire Farm are so beautiful and delicious. And why the ones I have tried to grow are such failures.

I originally thought these radishes were really turnips because of the size. I was wrong. I also thought the roses carved of vegetables on banquet tables were dyed turnips, but no, the petals are carved from Beauty Heart radishes, and as good to eat as they are a pretty decoration.

Chinese New Year

Pat — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:58:00 +0000

For days now Chinese people have been travelling all over the country to return to their home towns to celebrate Spring Festival, the beginning of the lunar new year. During the two separate years (1989-90 and 1995-96) we spent in Beijing we learned about the importance of this holiday.

In the west, New Year’s Eve means a party and greeting the new year at midnight, but in China it means 20 days of celebration with family, surrounding themselves with symbols of good luck and wealth. The trip to be with family is the most essential. This is so vital that even the repressive Communist government allowed for a 20 day holiday and gave permission for spouses, who were often assigned work in different places, to travel and be together for the duration of Spring Festival. This was one of the things it was so difficult for me to understand while we were there, the huge numbers of couples who were separated from each other, and often from their children who ended up living with grandparents in a third location.

Once together, families make jiaozi together. Jiaozi are the little stuffed dumplings made in the shape of silver money that are symbolic of wishes for a new year stuffed with good good things. Long noodles are served, a wish for long life. Oranges abound, an obvious wish for wealth, as are sweets of any kind a wish for sweetness in the new year.

The red lanterns are a symbol of reunion and prosperity. Other fancy lanterns can also be made for the celebration. My friend Betty and I spent a long afternoon in 1996 riding our bikes through the dusty alleys of a part of Beijing where we had been told a lantern maker lived. Betty was quite fluent in Chinese or we never would have found the man who made beautiful paper or silk lanterns, an art that is dying. I have two grandsons born in 1996, the year of the rat (or is it mouse – we were never clear) and so I bought a small paper lantern with a paper cut of the mouse, as well as a small red silk lantern, trimmed with gold. We could not afford, nor imagine how to ship, the beautiful big complex lanterns like the beautiful giant koi fish.

So today I look at my snow covered fields and remember that in Beijing, a desert city, the snow would also have been a good omen for the coming new year. Happy New Year! Xin Nian Hao!

Commonweeder » Beijing

A Valentine Radish

Chinese New Year