Raphanus sativus, a cruciferous plant related to, for example, turnip and horseradish. The swollen upper part of its root has been used for food since prehistoric times over such a vast area of the Old World, from W. Europe to China and Japan, that the place and manner of its origin are obscure. Most botanists believe the place to be W. Asia and the main ancestral wild plant to be Raphanus raphanistrum, a type of charlock (see mustard greens), but it is likely that other wild ancestors would have crossed with this.
The 5th-century bc Greek writer Herodotus, who had a weakness for tall stories but may here be relating the truth, said that there was an inscription on the Great Pyramid in Egypt recording the enormous amount of radishes (and also of onions and garlic) eaten by the slaves who built it. The inscription has not survived, but there are many pictures and records of radishes in slightly later Egyptian remains.
The Greeks knew three kinds of radish, corresponding to the modern long and round radishes, and to the Round Black Spanish variety. The ordinary Greek term for any radish was raphanos and the Latin name raphanus. The modern name radish is derived not from this but from the Latin radix, root. In the 1st century ad the Latin writer Pliny described a further kind of radish of immense size, as big, he said, as ‘a boy baby’ (boys were supposed to be larger than girls). Since radishes have about the same density as babies, this would have weighed about 3 kg (7 lb). Accounts of huge radishes continued to be told by later European writers, the largest weight claimed being 45 kg (100 lb) by the famous herbalist usually known as Matthiolus (1544, see Mattioli in the Bibliography). However, the home of the large radish is really in the Orient, as explained below.
The radish disappeared from European literature with the fall of the Roman Empire, though presumably it was still grown, and is not mentioned again until the 13th century, by Albertus Magnus. He described several types, including a giant radish, which he said had a tapered shape and a rather sharp taste. Large, elongated, but mild radishes became the most popular kind in Europe in succeeding centuries. These were slow-growing types which kept well after lifting in autumn, and provided a useful winter vegetable.
The radish did not reach Britain until the mid-16th century, only a short time before Spanish and Portuguese colonists introduced it to the New World, where nowadays Florida is the major producer. In Britain, Gerard (1633) mentioned four varieties, mainly ‘used as a sauce with meates to procure appetite’, but also ‘eaten raw with bread’. This last phrase serves as a curtain-raiser for a later development, when the small, young, spring radish, with its slightly hot taste due to a glucoside substance similar to that in the related plant mustard, became the dominant kind, for salads or as a piquant hors d'œuvre. Perhaps the most satisfactory way to eat them is to hold what is left of the green stalk between one's fingers, rub the radish over a piece of butter, dip it in salt (as Evelyn, 1699, remarked, it brings its own pepper with it!), and eat it with bread and butter.
Radishes vary in shape—oval, round, turnip shaped, olive shaped, tapering from the top, and even tapering from the bottom; and in external colour—white, pink, red, purple, black. Internal colour also varies, most strikingly in the flamboyant fuchsia hue sported by some varieties such as Beauty Heart—see below.
The black radishes favoured in many E. European cuisines are of a more earthy, robust character. A full account of their uses is given by Elizabeth Schneider (1986), who explains among many other things that the use of a zester to pare off strips of the black skin will produce remarkable black and white striped effects, which even survive cooking.
There is also a wide variation in the size of radishes. The oriental radishes, also known by their Japanese and Hindi names, daikon and mooli, may reach a length of 45 cm (18″) or more, and really constitute a different vegetable, almost omnipresent in oriental cuisines. Grated daikon is a garnish for sashimi in Japan. Ribbons and slices of daikon also make an attractive garnish; and slices are often included in stir-fry dishes. Pickled daikon is widely used, especially in Japan and Korea (see kimch'i).
Joy Larkcom (1991) draws attention to some Chinese radishes which have dramatically coloured flesh. One example is ‘Xin Li Mei’ (which translates as ‘Beauty Heart’—see above) with red flesh, and others with green or purple flesh or internal crimson striping, suitable for oriental vegetable carving. She explains that in N. China the Beauty Heart radishes are treated as fruits, crisper than an Asian pear.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Gerard, John (1633), The Herbal, New York: Dover.
Larkcom, Joy (1991), Oriental Vegetables, London: John Murray.
Schneider, Elizabeth (1986), Uncommon Fruits and Vegetables, New York: Harper & Row.
