Marash Girl can't remember when she first saw them, when she first learned to make them, but the radish roses were a part of her very early childhood. Her father loved radishes; her father grew radishes in his garden, one of the earliest vegetables to appear; and her mother loved to make radish roses.
Here's how. . .
Trim the leaves and tip off of each radish, removing all evidence of green. Wash radishes thoroughly in cool water. Carefully slice a third of the way down along the edge of the radish, making four cuts, leaving a center. (See photo below.) Soak in cool water, in the refrigerator and the flowers will open.
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| These radishes were purchased from the greengrocer's yesterday morning. |
Now not only can you make lemonade from lemons, but you can make roses from radishes!
one of the interesting things about the radish is its effect on our bodies. the radish is bitter, and intuitively, one would expect it to have an acidic effect on the body. not so, the radish is alkalizing, along with most green vegetables, and therefore had an exalted place at the dinner table.
ReplyDeletei loved to plant the radishes and began to do so at the same time i began to swing a baseball bat, when i was five years old. I knew they would be ready to be eaten in only 28 days, because the radishes grew faster than anything else in the garden. like a good fisherman, i would cast my hand on the right radish,the one ready to be plucked from the soil of our salvation. picking the radish was an adventure worthy of my patience, along with waiting for the day to be washed by apple blossoms falling to our earth and the little baby fruit peaking through the stems and growing into apples, red and huge. recumbent on our front escarpment, i would pick my radish, my carrot, and my apple, red delicious or yellow delicious, and feast on the rainbow of the sun in my hands. the five gallon glass jugs of water strategically placed at the four corners of our garden, could just as well have been household gods if we had been pagans. as christians, they were our sentinels and garden guards warding off raiders, predators of the earth who might deign to invade and carry off the fruit of the land. they were saluted in spirit every morning i passed between them.
AUNTY GULENIA WOULD DO THE RADISH ROSES . . . SHE DID IT AHEAD, AND THEN PUT THEM IN WATER IN THE REFRIGERATOR FOR THEM TO BLOOM! I believe Daddy's (Peter Bilezikian's) oldest sister Gulenia may be the oldest living survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Aunty Gulenia Sulahian now resides in California, walks with a walker (no wheelchair), ties her own shoes, dresses herself unassisted, and feeds herself. She is 106 years old!
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