Kitchen Garden Simon Courtauld

SALSIFY

A root vegetable known as the oyster plant, with the flavour of artichoke and young shoots tasting of asparagus, must surely be something special.

This is salsify, which many people will never have eaten but which was popular with the Victorians, partly thanks to Mrs Beeton.

It is grown and eaten more widely in France and Italy, unlike the parsnip which it resembles and which is hardly seen in Mediterranean markets. Salsify is an intriguing vegetable, belonging to the daisy, sunflower and dandelion family (Asteraceae) and producing purple-pink flowers in summer, which look rather like the star-shaped honka dahlias.

Salsify is easy enough to grow: the seed should be sown in soil that has not been freshly manured and the plants thinned to about six inches apart.

When hoeing between the plants, be careful not to damage the roots, which bleed easily. The roots can be lifted from mid-october or left in the ground through the winter and harvested the following season. As it is a biennial, the salsify roots will put up edible shoots and flowers during the second year.

The black-skinned version of salsify (with white flesh underneath) is also called scorzonera, apparently from the Italian scorza negra, or black bark. But this derivation is not certain, since the full name of black salsify is Scorzonera hispanica. Another explanation gives the name a French origin, from the old word scorzon, meaning adder, because in the 16th century the root was believed to be an antidote against snake bites.

Scorzonera has broader leaves than the true salsify, its flowers are yellow and it is said to have a more pronounced flavour. I grew it one year, without much success, as the roots were thin and almost 12 inches in length, and tended to snap when being dug up. They should have been left to grow stronger in the second year. A few plants, self-seeded, came up the following year, with green stems, which, I now know, I could have eaten.

The flower buds are also edible, and the petals can be added to salads.