Rutabagas don't get a lot of attention when it comes to vegetables. If your local grocery store carries them at all, there is only a tiny stack of them stuck somewhere in a corner by the other shunned vegetables like celery root and turnips.
A rutabaga is large, clumsy, awkward and not a real head turner when compared to some of the showier vegetables. They don't come packaged neatly in 5-, 10- or 20-pound bags like potatoes. No, you buy them one at a time. They aren't something you crave with every meal. Meat and potatoes even sound right together. Hey everyone, come to the table! We're having meat and ... Rutabagas? I don't foresee anyone running to the table for rutabagas.
Then there is the new darling of vegetables, kale. It's pretty and showy. It's dark green color and frilly leaves turn heads in the grocery store. It seduces you to buy it with its good looks and fancy color. Once established in the garden, it is unstoppable and keeps producing fresh greens well into the fall. Having green growing plants still standing in the garden in November makes you look like a super gardener, one who can keep things growing even after the frost.
In the meantime, the humble rutabaga lives its life underground. No one admires its speed of growth and productivity. The root probably isn't given much of a second thought until it's time to dig it up for winter storage.
While perhaps scorned within the community of vegetables, I have decided I like the lowly rutabaga. I hide it in stew and soup instead of its more famous counterpart, the potato. It slightly reduces the number of carbohydrates in a meal, and nobody around the dinner table has figured it out yet. Slow cooked in a soup or stew, they taste just as good as potatoes and nobody knows the difference.
While I have also decided I like the taste of kale, (fried with a little onion, garlic and bacon of course), it is what I would call an acquired taste, and there is not another soul in this household that has acquired a taste for this bitter green but me. Sure, kale is packed full of vitamins and minerals. Sure, it's loaded with antioxidants that carry away all that crud building up in your body from eating things like cake, cookies, donuts and potato chips. But if it tastes so bad that you can't eat it without disguising it with bacon, is there really a point?
The rutabaga: sturdy, versatile and doesn't get a lot of attention.
Kale: showy and popular; people are jumping on the kale bandwagon; most of them only pretend to like it.
Peculiar. People can be a lot like vegetables. Some are rugged and strong. They last a long time and don't wilt under pressure. They do what they are called to do without calling attention to themselves. They get the job done in a variety of situations and make do with what is available.
Then there are those who shrivel when the heat is turned up. They are followed by throngs of adoring fans, but underneath a pretty surface lies a taste so bitter that a little goes a long way.
I guess I'd rather be a rutabaga than kale. Which one are you?
Bev Berens is a mom to 4-H and FFA members in Michigan. Do you have a story to share? Email her at uphillfarm494@yahoo.com.