A very carbohydrate-rich vegetable is the rutabaga. It came to us in Germany from Scandinavia as early as the 17th century. It is also called “Swedish turnip”, which suggests its Nordic origin. In all probability, it is a subspecies of rapeseed. In northeastern Germany it is also called Wryke or Wruke. In times of war it was often essential for survival. Very often it was processed into stews or even eaten raw when hunger was great. Especially in the time of need during the First World War in 1917, this vegetable became very important in the so-called “turnip winter”. Since soldiers often did not have the opportunity to prepare a warm soup from the rutabaga they found in the fields, slices of the rutabaga were eaten cold as a substitute for bread. In the fields at that time, soldiers recognized rutabaga by its blue-green leaves, and it is still recognized today.
Here’s what you should know about rutabaga
The rutabaga came to us in Germany from Scandinavia as early as the 17th century. Due to the memory of the bad time, the rutabaga was unjustly after the war no longer in demand and even fell into oblivion. In the sign of conscious nutrition, however, almost every housewife has learned a lot about healthy food after lectures and from new cookbooks. She has said goodbye to her old, very fatty and calorie-rich cuisine and tries to cook as low in calories and as rich in vitamins as possible. So also the rutabaga with all its variations came back to honor. One remembered again this vegetable, which was often life-saving in the bad time and from which the consciously cooking housewife could manufacture many calorie-poor courts. The cookbooks provided her with the necessary suggestions for this.
Importance for health
The rutabaga does not look very appealing, but for the calorie-conscious housewife it is an ideal winter vegetable. Especially for hearty stews, rutabaga is excellent. It is harvested in the fields from September to April and is preferably sold at weekly markets. It can be stored very well. If you are a stockist, you can store rutabaga in the cellar for several months and still have fresh rutabaga in the summer to prepare summer dishes. If the housewife needs only half a rutabaga for a dish, she can store the other half in the refrigerator in the vegetable compartment. Here, this vegetable will keep for a few days. If you buy the turnip, be sure to get a smaller one with a smooth skin and without worm infestation. The larger rutabaga can be slightly woody. For food use, the rutabaga that has a yellow coloring under the skin is popular. It has an intense sweet taste. The rutabaga with the white coloring is mostly used as animal feed.
Ingredients and nutritional values
| Nutritional information |
Amount per 100 gram |
| Calories 38 | Fat content 0.2 g |
| Cholesterol 0 mg |
Sodium 12 mg |
| Potassium 305 mg | Carbohydrates 9 g |
| Protein 1.1 g |
Vitamin C 25 mg |
For health, our greatest asset, rutabaga has a great importance. It was the largest supplier of carbohydrates ever in wartime. Even today, its carbohydrate content is important for health. In addition, the rutabaga has a greater amount of beta-carotene due to its coloration; it has a lot of vitamin C, vitamin B1 and B2, glucose and fructose, provitamin A, minerals and sulfurous essential oils. Iron, zinc and folic acid are also present in this vegetable.It is low in calories due to its high water content. It contains only 29 calories per 100 grams.
Intolerances and allergies
There is nothing known about allergies or intolerances.
Shopping and kitchen tips
Most often, rutabaga is enjoyed cooked as a soup. However, it is also delicious pureed as a side dish with fish or meat dishes. Even deep-fried like French fries, you can enjoy the rutabaga. Also a delicious salad, which tastes excellent in the summer on hot days, is made from the rutabaga. For this salad the cook needs half a turnip, a bunch of parsley, 50 grams of walnuts, 3 teaspoons of brown sugar, 4 tablespoons of orange juice, 4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, 4 tablespoons of walnut oil.From the chopped nuts, parsley, caramelized sugar, vinegar and juice is prepared the sauce for rutabagas, then the blanched beets are folded into it. The whole thing is served cold and tastes very delicious. It goes well with freshly roasted walnut bread. However, these are already the subtleties of rutabaga preparation. But especially in the winter time is always the rutabaga soup a wonderful warming dish, which tastes good even warmed up the next day.
Preparation tips
There are always many new or old recipes for using rutabaga in all parts of Germany. The recipe, after which is probably cooked the most, is the rutabaga soup, as it already cooked my grandmother and which tasted the whole family. For this soup you need 800 grams of marbled, i.e. somewhat fat, pork rib with bones. The meat is boiled for an hour and a half with a stick of leek, half a celery bulb, one large or two small carrots, salt, water, mixed soup vegetables and two to three bay leaves. After that, the broth is strained. Now 750 grams of potatoes and one kilogram of stalked turnips are added to the broth. An onion sweated with 50 grams of smoked bacon is added. The whole thing is cooked for another 15 minutes, then the meat is added. Now the dish should not cook for a long time, because otherwise the rutabaga will get a cabbage taste. Now the appetizing soup is salted and pepper is added. As a garnish, smoked mettwurst or sausage tastes very good. Among the many sophisticated recipes for the use of rutabaga is also rutabaga as a vegetable garnish to meat dishes or rutabaga steaks. A lasagna made of rutabaga with minced meat is also well-known. Casseroles with minced meat are also prepared with the turnip and taste excellent. Even for baby food rutabaga can be used. Because it tastes sweet and is easy to puree, it can be used instead of carrots for children’s food as well as for the first baby food. The toddler can eat the rutabaga mash itself from the plate, while the baby can be given the drinkable, pureed beet soup in the bottle. In this way, the baby as well as the toddler already gets a healthy, high-energy food that promotes its growth in the long term. For this reason, then, it is clear that rutabaga can be considered one of the basic foods. It is digestible from infancy to old age. For the adult, one rutabaga meal satisfies a day’s need for valuable vitamins and minerals, because even when pureed, it delivers all the important minerals and ingredients to the human organism.
