The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-20
TURNIP AS A LUXURY.

From the Louisville Courier-J ournal.
 The esteemed Washington Post is do- ing long deferred justice to that alto gether inadequately appreciated luxury, the turnip. When we say luxury we mean the turnip that few city dwellers ever saw or ever will see. The Posts inspiration is turnip soup, but the tur- nip necessary to the Posts favorite brew is as good for other use as for soup making.
 Thus sings our Washington epicure
 First get your turnip. and there's the rub. You will not find it at the green grocer's, nor In the market place, where the disreputable and ruff fianly July-sown turnip is so disgust ingly conspicuous-a great, plethoric, obese, pot -belled thing, fit only for pigs and rams. The gentlemanly tur- nip must be planted in the early Sep tember, and he is very particular about the place and immensely particular as to the character of the weather.
 "The ground must be rich; not only that it must have been 'corned and tobaccoed' to death and turned out to briers and brambles. An old orchard in the 'pennyrile' of Kentucky is best. Aft CT years of neglect bluegrass will cover this old field with a sod, beneath which is a deposit of new and rich mold. Plow that the last of dog days and make the seed bed as light and as fine as an ash bank. Then SOW your tur- nips and brush em in with a cedar lap, and if the weather is very dry and very mild, and the pigs don't break in and steal, by the first frost in October you have a patch of turnips, the average about as big as two hulled walnuts, as sweet as the best apple you ever ate at sch ool when hungry boy, a little after II o'clock. That is turnip, and the rarest of all the vegetables for its sheer scarcity. As an article of food for the epicure, a peck of him is worth a ton of the turnips you find in the city market.
 Now let us cook this rascal. Pick up on the place a thrifty shoat some thing over threescore days and ten old, and something less than threscore pounds and ten in weight, and butcher him. After the carcass has spent a night in the spring house and Is thor oughly cool, cut out that part of the middling holding the ribs and put 1t on to stew, not boil and add your tur- nips that have been peeled, sliced and chilled in water just out of the spring. Add half a pod of red pepper and stew till the Ticker Is a little thicker than broth and a little thinner than gravy, removing the pork when thoroughly done and roasting 1t in the oven. Have ready hot corn pone-the real stuff
 Now take a hog driver of eight year old apple brandy, not whisky, un- couple your vest, sit down to table, and when you get up you will congratulate yourself for your letter to Lucullus re- gretting that you could not sup with him that evening. But the turnip must be grown in rich soil long years fallow, and grown quick"
 Could not the Post manage to secure the necessary ingredients and set a banquet of turnip soup for the in coming administration? Such feast would quickly relegate 'possum and sweet 'taters back to the Georgia cab ins. where they belong.
 Colonel Sellers sh ould no longer be allowed to stand alone among our illus trious in his championship of the tur- nip as 8 table delicacy.