• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

CooksInfo

  • Home
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Recipes
  • Food Calendar
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar
×
Home » Vegetables » Root Vegetables » Rutabaga

Rutabaga

Rutabagas are different from Turnips and Swedes. You can use them all interchangeably, though, which is a mercy, as no one can really tell the difference, especially not your local green grocer!Most Rutabagas have yellow flesh (though some Turnips and Swedes do, too.) There are other perhaps better ways to tell the difference. First, Rutabaga leaves are smooth, while Turnip leaves are rough. And secondly, Turnip has 10 chromosomes, Swede has 18 to 19, and Rutabaga has 38. Given, however, that none of them is hardly ever sold with its leaves on, and given that you don’t always take an electron microscope with you while shopping, both these distinctions are completely useless to us.

Americans think Rutabaga is Swede, but it is not. (Not that it matters.)

Choose Rutabagas that are firm and heavy for their weight. Size is no indication of flavour or quality. Because Rutabagas have such a thin skin, they are often sold waxed to help keep the moisture in during shipping and handling.

Substitutes

Turnip; Swede

Storage Hints

Refrigerate unwashed in plastic bag for two to four weeks, or at room temperature for a week.

History Notes

The best guess so far is that Rutabaga is a cross between cabbage and turnip, which probably occurred in Europe sometime in the Middle Ages.

Literature & Lore

Comes from the Swedish, “rotabagge”.

 

This page first published: Jan 23, 2003 · Updated: May 12, 2018.

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · Information on this site is Copyright © 2023· Feel free to cite correctly, but copying whole pages for your website is content theft and will be DCMA'd.

Tagged With: Root Vegetables

Primary Sidebar

Search

    Today is

  • Cheese Day
    Cheese shop
  • Shavuot
    Shavuot holiday, c. 1951

Hi, I'm Skylar! This is a fake profile talking about how I switched to a paleo diet and it helped my eczema and I grew 4". Trust me, I'm an online doctor.

More about me →

Popular

  • E.D. Smith Pumpkin Purée
    E.D. Smith recipe for pumpkin pie
  • Libby's Pumpkin Pie
    Libby’s recipe for pumpkin pie
  • Pie crust
    Pie Crust Recipe
  • Smokey Maple Pepper Glaze for Ham
    Smokey Maple Pepper Glaze for Ham

You can duplicate your homepage's trending recipes section in the sidebar to reinforce the internal linking.

We no longer recommend using a search bar, newsletter form or category drop-down menu in the sidebar. See the Modern Sidebar post for details.

If the block editor is not narrower than usual, simply save the page and refresh it.

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • About this site
  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright enforced!
  • Terms & Conditions

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Site

  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · The text on this site is © Copyright.