Salsify

Appears in

Autumn and Winter Cooking with a Veg Box (Riverford Companions)

Published 2015

About

Salsify is a beautiful name for a vegetable that most resembles a small gnarled walking stick. It was a Victorian favourite but they often gave it the same unappetising treatment as scalloped oysters and served it in thin slices, drowned in white sauce, which is perhaps why it fell out of fashion.

We started to cultivate it after asking our customers for suggestions from their own allotments – a large number of you grow your own veg – and I’m glad we did. Its delicate creamy flesh has been compared to everything from oysters to parsnips, but I think it’s most like another vegetable that is close to my heart – globe artichokes; subtle and delicate and not too sweet. They are both part of the Asteraceae or sunflower family, which includes a number of unusual and delicious edible species, ranging from thistles to chicory and water lotus.