Four root stir fry: parsnip, sunchoke, potato and burdock

The first roots of the year (besides potatoes) have come in!

So I cut them up very finely and made them into a stir fry, using olive oil for the frying oil (though butter would have worked nicely too). It tastes very good and smells even better.

How do you like to prepare your permaculture roots?

I made another two today. The first with potato, sunchoke, jalapeño, and ginger. The second was the same, but instead of potato I added evening primrose. I am trying to like evening primrose, but they have a strong taste sort of like a cross between Spilanthes, the toothache flower, and raw hairy solomon’s seal roots. If they were a monocot, I would assume they were full of raphides and spit them out. This time it still tastes a little like toothache flower, but in a good way, not obnoxiously so. And since the root was a large, sweet one, that makes it better—some of them, especially in spring, can be woody and inedible. (Fall seems to be the time.) The sunchoke sweetens and balances out the flavor. Oddly I don’t seem to taste much of the spices.

New fried roots again! Sunchoke, potato, carrot and a little onion. And then some apple mixed in.

I should not have added so many in a batch, nor added more after the initial amount. Some of them are burnt. Oh, well. At least those ones can fertilize the garden!

I wish I knew of some good quince bushes. I do have a friend who moved here from a ways away and goes back regularly, who usually brings back a few bags of quinces, which I’m grateful for. I’ve planted the seeds and they grow like weeds, but I’ve never seen a mature bush around here fruit for some reason. It’s strange; they’re plenty hardy, and I knew someone who lives up in the chilly highlands who often had a good crop of them. But not here.

Since nibbling around burnt bits didn’t fully satiate me, I made another batch, making sure not to add any roots unevenly. This is one of my special seed grown white potatoes that roots at the nodes, grows from cuttings, has purple eyes, makes spectacular flowers, and overall is a very special potato. I should be saving them for seed, but my regular potatoes aren’t ready yet! Despite a frost coming in, they’re still green.

Sometimes they grow gigantic, but these white potatoes were planted a bit late so they’re small. They are also knobbly like a sunchoke.