The main purpose of a turnip is to feed hungry people, and the hakurei (pronounced like “samurai”) turnip is no exception. We aren’t talking about the kind of hunger when you wonder when dinner will be ready. To eat most turnips, you need more of a “Little House on the Prairie during an extra-long winter” level of hunger, when the carrots and onions and flour are gone and there is nothing else to eat. Turnips are dense, nutritious, and can outlast almost any other type of fresh vegetable in a non-refrigerated storage situation, but aren’t usually the tastiest root in the cellar.
Also known as the Tokyo Turnip, the hakurei was developed in the 1950s, when Japan was desperate to feed itself after being destroyed by World War II. The hakurei plant grows fast—about a month from sowing to harvest—and can handle a light frost and other forms of adversity. As a bonus, this bright white globe of a taproot has culinary properties that were previously unheard of among turnips, earning the hakurei the honorary title, “caviar of turnips.”
