Courtesy “Just a Pinch Recipes” Website
The rise and fall of turnip soup.
Soups were always important as the overture to a substantial meal, and the Lowcountry had a number of signature dishes at various times. The old soups date from the early 1800s: oyster soup, red pea soup, turtle soup (cooter soup), mock turtle soup, okra soup, and turnip soup. The period from 1850 to 1900 added tomato soup, chicken soup, corn soup, black fish chowder, lima bean/butterbean soup, cauliflower soup, and shrimp soup. 1900 to 1950 brought cream of asparagus soup, She Crab Soup, Onion Soup, and potato soup.
The one soup that requires explanation is turnip, since it has fallen from the first rank of favorites. Made with either cooked mashed white globe turnips, or diced cubes of whole turnips in a cream sauce, it was the South’s Vichyssoise, albeit served hot as winter comfort rather than cold as summer refreshment. There were other differences as well. Vichyssoise usually is built on a chicken stock; turnip soup on veal or mutton stock. Vichyssoise employs leeks to sweeten the soup (important in cold soups), most southern versions of turnip soup don’t use onions or leeks.
But the marginalization of turnip soup can be attributed to two historical happenstances: the general turn away from cream soups in American culture because of their high fat content and the decline in the esteem for the turnip—though this was more a national than regional phenomenon.
For most of the 19th century turnips rivaled potatoes and sweet potatoes as the favorite American root crop, with the roots being roasted, boiled, and mashed and the greens (turnip salad) boiled or sautéed enjoying equal favor. But with startling rapidity, this staple of the winter table gained the reputation as being a lesser vegetable lacking the dietary value of other roots particularly. Beginning in 1900 farmers started reporting that the quality of turnips was declining with more roots becoming pithy and dull tasting. Did some change in cultivation practices lead to this fall off in flavor? Opening sentence of a news article from 1901: “This vegetable is very much underrated is considered rather a vulgar and not very nutritious tuber” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 17, 1901, p3).
The one region that maintained its affection for the turnip was the South, where the vegetable had long been considered the ideal accompaniment for game dishes, where turnip soup was the welcome start of many a winter meal, and where turnip greens joined collards and mustard in potlikker.
Brassica rapa had become an American staple at the end of the 18th century, when the writings of English agronomist Arthur Young had popularized the turnip as livestock feed on American farms. The purple top, the early Dutch, the Norfolk, and White Globe turnips I particular became standard cultivars—and the first and last of this list remain widely available as heirloom stock. Their flavor—minty and mustardy with sharp and sweet notes—made them among the more versatile of the root vegetables. The majority of the crop was planted in late summer for early winter or late autumn harvest. Another, lesser crop went in late winter for early summer harvest. Frost nipped roots were considered the most flavorsome, with the taste becoming more sweetly mild than sharp. In the South in the latter part of the 19th century two types of salad turnips grown for greens especially emerged: the seven top (which lacked a bulbous root) and the Georgia Winter Turnip (Crawford, Southern Pride) which generated much foliage and a root known for texture more than flavor.
As most of the country turned away from turnips in the early 20th century, southern farmers maintained their traditional interest in the plant, embracing new varieties—the Milan, the White Egg, the Long White Cow Horn (for feed), the White Pomeranian Globe, and the English Greystone. Turnip soup remained on the menu at hotels until the 1950s. Then national fashion intruded, with turnip being bumped for . . . vichyssoise.
Soups . . . and the rise and fall of turnip soup.
Soups were always important as the overture to a substantial meal, and the Lowcountry had a number of signature dishes at various times. The old soups date from the early 1800s: oyster soup, red pea soup, turtle soup (cooter soup), mock turtle soup, okra soup, and turnip soup. The period from 1850 to 1900 added tomato soup, chicken soup, corn soup, black fish chowder, lima bean/butterbean soup, cauliflower soup, and shrimp soup. 1900 to 1950 brought cream of asparagus soup, She Crab Soup, Onion Soup, and potato soup.
The one soup that requires explanation is turnip, since it has fallen from the first rank of favorites. Made with either cooked mashed white globe turnips, or diced cubes of whole turnips in a cream sauce, it was the South’s Vichyssoise, albeit served hot as winter comfort rather than cold as summer refreshment. There were other differences as well. Vichyssoise usually is built on a chicken stock; turnip soup on veal or mutton stock. Vichyssoise employs leeks to sweeten the soup (important in cold soups), most southern versions of turnip soup don’t use onions or leeks.
But the marginalization of turnip soup can be attributed to two historical happenstances: the general turn away from cream soups in American culture because of their high fat content and the decline in the esteem for the turnip—though this was more a national than regional phenomenon.
For most of the 19th century turnips rivaled potatoes and sweet potatoes as the favorite American root crop, with the roots being roasted, boiled, and mashed and the greens (turnip salad) boiled or sautéed enjoying equal favor. But with startling rapidity, this staple of the winter table gained the reputation as being a lesser vegetable lacking the dietary value of other roots particularly. Beginning in 1900 farmers started reporting that the quality of turnips was declining with more roots becoming pithy and dull tasting. Did some change in cultivation practices lead to this fall off in flavor? Opening sentence of a news article from 1901: “This vegetable is very much underrated is considered rather a vulgar and not very nutritious tuber” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 17, 1901, p3).
The one region that maintained its affection for the turnip was the South, where the vegetable had long been considered the ideal accompaniment for game dishes, where turnip soup was the welcome start of many a winter meal, and where turnip greens joined collards and mustard in potlikker.
Brassica rapa had become an American staple at the end of the 18th century, when the writings of English agronomist Arthur Young had popularized the turnip as livestock feed on American farms. The purple top, the early Dutch, the Norfolk, and White Globe turnips I particular became standard cultivars—and the first and last of this list remain widely available as heirloom stock. Their flavor—minty and mustardy with sharp and sweet notes—made them among the more versatile of the root vegetables. The majority of the crop was planted in late summer for early winter or late autumn harvest. Another, lesser crop went in late winter for early summer harvest. Frost nipped roots were considered the most flavorsome, with the taste becoming more sweetly mild than sharp. In the South in the latter part of the 19th century two types of salad turnips grown for greens especially emerged: the seven top (which lacked a bulbous root) and the Georgia Winter Turnip (Crawford, Southern Pride) which generated much foliage and a root known for texture more than flavor.
As most of the country turned away from turnips in the early 20th century, southern farmers maintained their traditional interest in the plant, embracing new varieties—the Milan, the White Egg, the Long White Cow Horn (for feed), the White Pomeranian Globe, and the English Greystone. Turnip soup remained on the menu at hotels until the 1950s. Then national fashion intruded, with turnip being bumped for . . . vichyssoise. That doesn’t mean that turnip soup was wiped entirely from the list of home preparations. What happened was that the turnip was demeaned by being paired with another ingredient that shared top billing: potato & turnip soup, apple & turnip soup, parsnip & turnip soup, turnip & leek soup.
The classic formula was to add sliced turnips to a well cooked meat stock (mutton, veal, pork), often cooked in a pressure cooker (“digester” in pre-twentienth century parlance), sliced turnips were then added and cooked until they broke down. Cream finished the soup to turn its color from grey to white. Here are three 19th century versions. The first from Sarah Rutledge’s The Carolina Housewife (1847), the second from Theresa C. Brown’s Modern Domestic Cookery (1871), and the third from the Abbeville SC Press & Banner of April 9, 1879.