Galicia's clitoris festival - turnip tops for the win!

I've always called them turnip tops. The locals call them grelos. Sometimes they are rapini.

Galicia has a whole festival devoted to them.

And google translate obviously recognises quite how special they can be...

Galicia celebrates 'clitoris festival' thanks to Google Translate error



Though I have to admit, the real thing is pretty awesome too. Here's a photo and link to a recipe.



What more can I say?

They look really juicy.

The turnip tops, I mean.

This is actually perhaps worth knowing about. I intend to win it at some point.

This part of Iberia certainly does love its vegetables!

Portugal is famed for it's leafy pottery. Here's a couple of pieces I picked up locally. I'm a little nervous of what people might think of me now if I display those grelos nabs too prominently. Are they considered rude? I'm guessing the pickle dish is supposed to be some kind of bush cabbage.



Apparently most anatomical parts have Portuguese colloquial names of various fruits and vegetables, but I'm having difficulty getting anyone to give me a definitive list. I'll update as I find them out.

Do any other languages do this?

I'm not aware of it in terms of vegetables, but I am aware of it in terms of the landscape. It's something I've been giving thought to in the context of pattern languages in forest gardening - not only what patterns do we use, but how do we name them in the context of our experience of the landscape?

In Scots Gaelic, the word "fèith" means vein or sinew, but also a channel or stream in a bog. Some terms are more scatalogical. One particular mountain was renamed from Cac Càrn Beag when Queen Victoria bought the estate. This was probably to avoid the following conversation:

Vicki: And whet do you kell thet mountain?
Gillie: Cac Càrn Beag, ma'arm.
Vicki: Ewww. And whet does thet mean?
Gillie: Little heap of sh!te, ma'arm.

They renamed it after the loch (Lochnagar) at its base, but climbers still often use the Gaelic.

Another spot is named as "Devil's Point" on Ordnance Survey maps. This is a translation of Bod an Deamhain, or Pe**s of the Demon. The same ghillie is thought to be responsible for that, too.

Two hills not far from where I am are known as the paps o' Fife, because they are, well, pleasantly rounded.

Sadly, with the dominance of English in Scots culture, a lot of these names are in the process of being lost. Others went because the early surveyors went and talked to the rich landowners, not the people who lived and worked on the land, which then allowed the despoilation of the countryside (I'm reliably informed that, when they were planting the endless tracts of Sitka spruce they described it as "mamba country" - "miles and miles of bugger all").

One of the things I think that might be important to living in a forest garden habitat is regaining this verbal language in the context of our experience of it. Some parts of a forest garden will involve the organic processing of wastes. Others will be fruitful, or hard, or wet, and I like the idea of expressing those through the names we give these places in our gardens. I see no problem with extending this to the plants we grow.

Burra Maluca wrote:This part of Iberia certainly does love its vegetables!

Portugal is famed for it's leafy pottery. Here's a couple of pieces I picked up locally. I'm a little nervous of what people might think of me now if I display those grelos nabs too prominently. Are they considered rude? I'm guessing the pickle dish is supposed to be some kind of bush cabbage.

Apparently most anatomical parts have Portuguese colloquial names of various fruits and vegetables, but I'm having difficulty getting anyone to give me a definitive list. I'll update as I find them out.

Do any other languages do this?

Yes, in Spain el "nabo" or turnip also means the penis.

Imagine the jokes if some young fellow wanders aimlessly around the farmers market, because he can't find or figure out what to do with this vegetable. 😂

I think I've done my share of giving the local market stall holders a laugh.

See that butternut on the far right hand side? That's the only one that we didn't grow - I wanted a locally grown butternut/moshcata for seed and spent ages at the market selecting one that stood upright in the hope of getting a line of moschatas that stored easily. I carefully tested out each one on the stall and chose the best shaped one, then realised that everyone was watching me and, presumably, making their assumptions as to what I was intending to use it for.

Burra Maluca wrote:bush cabbage

I'm not gonna say it, but you know what I'm thinking...

Ah yes, Portugal's couve Galega, aka bush cabbage.

Of course, they have grelos too, but they grelos de couve, not grelos nabs.

Rather beautiful, don't you think?

This is a story from my friend, Mary Pate, who grew up in Savannah in the middle of the last century. Just after the war, when she was in college, she decided to spend a summer in the Appalachian Mountains in Northwest Georgia travelling around talking to the folks who had lived there for generations. She filled notebooks with folk cures (to cure a stomach ache, for example, the sufferer lies on a wooden barrel on it's side. Someone grabs wrists, someone grabs ankles, and they roll the patient back and forth. Presumably until they either get better or die, I don't know), ghost stories, and gardening folklore. In the Spring, the people told Mary, they'd plant by phases of the moon. The round produce - tomatoes, acorn squash, melons - were planted by the women. At the end of each row, the woman would turn around, hike up her skirts, bend over, and moon the whole row. Presumably to give the coming crop inspiration. The longer vegetables - green beans, zucchini squash, cucumbers - were planted by the men.

I'd forgotten that in English, we have a few...interesting...names for plants.

Nipplewort comes to mind first. My husband and I both laughed when we ran across that name when trying to identify a plant!



Rapeseed's name is awkward enough that we call it canola, instead. (Upon further research it appears not all rapeseed is called canola. Only one cultivar is, as it's low in erucic acid. "One dictionary purports that it stands for Can(ada) + o(il) + l(ow) + a(cid).")

Ha ha! I found more: http://forums.canadiancontent.net/hot-topics/71196-harden-off-your-knobweed-bbc.html Here's some of the best:

STIFF COCK (Diospyros Crassenevis): This native of the Bahamas has strong-smelling leathery leaves which are used to make a tea that is claimed to be the herbal form of Viagra.

...

COCKHOLD HERB (Bidens Connata): A plant with yellow daisy-like flowers produced in late summer and autumn. The tufted seeds attach to fur and clothing to aid their spread.

And some more here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/gardening/naughty-names-10-very-rude-8123991

Like the sausage tree



and

Family Jewels Milkweed
This is a tree-like milkweed from South Africa that grows quickly during the warmer months. Latin name asclepias physocarpus, the plant forms small mauve and white star-shaped flowers that grow in clusters, which then make way for hairy green round-shaped seedpods.

And, of course, how could I forget Piss-Off Plant!  It supposedly will repel cats from garden beds if spaced three-feet apart. I think everyone needs this plant...to give to their least favorite co-worker :D

The proper term for a mature male chicken is, of course, "cock."  I don't feel all that self-conscious about saying it myself, but to avoid embarrassment among others I tend to fall back on "rooster."  (Funny, though, how nobody seems to have any hangup whatsoever with "cockerel.")  As I understand it, the dual meanings of "cock" aren't the result of just some happenstance linguistic convergence; rather, the term was applied to the chicken in reference to his proud, upright bearing.  So rather than a wholesome word that was co-opted by some seemingly unwholesome people, it was a dirty word to begin with!

There is a Belgian lambic beer made by Cantillon known as "Fou Foune."  It is made with apricots.  "Fou foune" is evidently a double entendre, being translated "apricot" and, according to the brewer, is a term used to describe "a woman's sex" (owing, of course, to certain visual similarities).

These peppers grow great in sunny window indoors all winter, Don't make hash browns or fried potatoes without chopping a Peter Pepper in

I was trying to ID a plant in my yard, when I came across this lovely plant...

Sleepydick (Ornithogalum umbellatum)



I--I can't.... I can't stop laughing!

Dale Hodgins wrote:Imagine the jokes if some young fellow wanders aimlessly around the farmers market, because he can't find or figure out what to do with this vegetable. 😂

There's a brazilian short movie about a guy who feels attraction to watermelons. He tells about it to his girlfriend and she gots intererested. Then both of them goes to the farmer's market to choose vegetables to her. The farmer's market scenes are hilarious!
The short movie was made in the 70's and was censored by  Brazilian dictatorship at the time. It's an erotic comedy. On youtube, only in portuguese:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nDVkX2Aw1U