Notes From Underground

There was a time when the only root vegetables anyone paid attention to were carrots and potatoes. (I know potatoes are tubers. Whatever.) Turnips were déclassé, celeriac unheard of, beets a pain to clean. The perception has changed, in part because it was all wrong; in part because if you’re going to eat seasonal and local, you are going to eat roots in winter, even if you live in California; and in part because roasted root vegetables, which most of us have discovered only recently, are, like, the greatest thing ever, and even the company cafeteria can’t ruin them.

Here’s one more reason: They’re interchangeable. Color aside, many of them actually look the same. (Even colorwise, it’s confusing, because there are white carrots, yellow beets and purple potatoes.) Their density is quite similar, so they cook at about the same rate. Most contain starchy sugars, so they brown beautifully and become sweet after cooking. (Only carrots and beets are sweet raw.) All of this can be disclosed simply by substituting just about any root vegetable you like in your favorite potato recipe. The treatment won’t be identical (the more sugar, the quicker the browning), but it will be similar, and the results will almost always be startling and good.

So here are six recipes, each based on a given root, but the point is this: Mess around. Bake beets instead of celeriac; make creamy potato soup, braise carrots, braise parsnips and so on. And don’t stop there: please consider turnips, rutabaga and yams, as well as taro, yucca, boniato and cassava.

If you have more than you know what to do with, make pickles, a purée (also good for baby food) or a simple chutney. By the time you’re sick of all that, it’ll be spring.