French Breakfast Radish

It’s radish time at last, and the French Breakfast Radish (Raphanus sativus), a red-skinned root vegetable in the Brassicaceae family with a white splash at the root end, is my favorite. Crisp and refreshing, not too woody or spicy (at least if harvested before hotter days over-mature it), and oh-so beautiful, this late spring through early summer classic is a perennial staple of Rosslyn’s vegetable garden.

Distinguished by its oblong shape (picture an oval slightly more elongated than spherical) and delicate flavor, these early to mature, fast growing treats are as perfect for on-the-go snacks as they are for salads and sandwiches. In France this crisp, colorful breakfast and lunch accompaniment is usually eaten raw with butter and a bit of salt.

The French Breakfast Radish tends to be mild (less “spicy” than other standard radishes) if harvested and eaten early. Widely considered a spring radish, it’s ideally grown and harvested when temperatures are still cool. Hotter temperatures increase the “spiciness” (peppery bitterness common to most radishes) and often result in a pithy interior.

As with standard radish varieties, the “radish greens” of the French Breakfast Radish can also be eaten. Washed and tossed into a saucepan of olive oil (or avocado oil), garlic, and onion, this wilted green is a delicious accompaniment to just about any meal!

Nota bene: If you harvest, store, and then discover that your gems have wrinkled up and lost their luster, just plunk them into a bowl of water and put them back in your refrigerator. A few hours later the greens will have recovered, the radishes will have plumped, and the lipstick red will glow once again.

French Breakfast Radish Posts on Rosslyn Redux

The following list shows my previous posts in which you’ll find a French Breakfast Radish “cameo” (and in some cases a bit more than a cameo.) Enjoy!

• French Breakfast Radish
  French Breakfast Radish (Source: Geo Davis) It’s radish time at last, and the French Breakfast Radish (Raphanus sativus), a red-skinned root vegetable in the Brassicaceae family with a white splash at the root end, is my favorite. Crisp and refreshing, not too woody or spicy (at least if harvested before hotter days over-mature it), and oh-so ...
• Soggy Soil Delays Planting
  With some Champlain Valley residents being evacuated by boat and the Wesport Marina totally flooded, we’re feeling fortunate that a submerged boathouse and waterfront is the extent of our flooding problems. Although we have our work cut our for us when Lake Champlain water levels drop, another short-term challenge is the super saturated soil. Tilling the ...
• Rosslyn Gardens: Mid-July Veggies
  After the rainiest spring/summer in years, the summer of 2012 appears to be one of the driest, and Rosslyn gardens have mostly profited. Time for an update on our mid-July veggies, plus an important question about squash blossoms at the end. Lake Champlain water levels are plummeting (waterfront/dock/boating update soon) and lawns are either crispy, crunchy ...
• Snakes, Swiss Chard & Automobiles
  A week ago today was a day for snakes. Though – sadly, I must add – it was not a day for living snakes… Rattlesnakes and White Tail Deer Let’s start with the good news. Or at least the benign-if-slightly-amusing news. To set the stage, imagine yourself walking across the still dewy lawn south of the carriage ...
• Radishes and Radish Greens
  On this technicolor Tuesday I present to you one of our flashiest May garden treats, French Breakfast Radishes. Field and forrest foraged veggies — like stinging nettles, wild ramps, and fiddleheads — are nature’s charitable reminder that winter has once again yielded to spring. Then our vegetable gardens begin to awaken with asparagus and spinach that spoil our ...
• Learning to Live: Sweet Corn and Raccoons
  I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ~ Henry David Thoreau I’ve never successfully grown sweet corn at Rosslyn. ...
• Lake Champlain is Rising, Rising, Rising
  I’ve been back in the Adirondacks for a week after a six week “walkabout” with my bride and beast (Griffin, a 5 year old Labrador Retriever). And today is the first day that it hasn’t rained since we our return. The sky is blue. The sun is warm. Robins are plucking worms from the soggy lawn. ...
• Remembering and Recounting
  “Life is not what one lives, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Living to Tell the Tale As I organize multiple pieces of Rosslyn’s renovation, our littoral Adirondack existence, and my still-young marriage into some sort of coherent storyline I wrestle consciously with occasional incongruities ...