Radish, Black

When you savor your way through one of those irresistible cold spreads that keep appearing in nineteenth-century Russian novels, the black radish is one of the zakuski you would expect to find—along with the pickled mushrooms, sausage, beet salad, herring and onions, sturgeon, black bread, and vodka. It would probably have been coarsely grated, then mixed with a generous amount of thick sour cream and chives or scallions—just as it would be now if you were to encounter it in many parts of Russia or in Russian (particularly Jewish) households throughout the world. But if those are not your origins, you may be at a loss when you spy black radishes in the marketplace, which becomes more likely as produce stands overflow with “ethnic” specialties such as these.