Being an average-ish kid, I avoided turnips until I was in my early 20’s. Somewhere around there, I caught my mother frying turnip slices and decided to give them a try. Surprisingly, I loved them!

Sweeter than potatoes, packed with nutrients, and with a light, crisp texture, turnips became something to look forward to.

The years marched on and so did I. After a few years, I decided to introduce turnips into the meals I shared with my husband. But there was one problem- every single time the turnips were bitter!

Eventually I gave up trying to cook turnips that weren’t bitter, until one night I complained to my mother. “How come your turnips were always so good, and mine are horrible? Every time!”. Without missing a beat, my mother piped up with “How thick are you peeling your turnips?”  Say what? I’d always been taught to peel as close to the skin as possible so as to avoid waste.

Apparently that’s not what you do with turnips.

Do you see that yellowish line about 1/4″ in from the peel?  That’s the bitter part. You’ll feel as though you’re throwing away half the turnip when you cut that far down, but at least you’ll be able to eat the turnips!  And if the waste really bothers you, and you don’t have a composter or a pig, the white part between the peel and the bitter line should be fine to eat.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 3:04 am and is filed under Cooking Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.