The Underground Turnip Imposters You Never Knew Were Lurking In Your Root Cellar

Rutabagas. What are they, really?

That is the question I found myself pondering this morning while seated in my favorite chair in the apple barn, watching Koko stare at a rutabaga on the kitchen counter with an intensity that can only be described as philosophical. He stared for eleven minutes. I timed it. Yum Yum, meanwhile, batted the vegetable onto the floor with a single, deliberate paw—a gesture I can only interpret as a damning critique of modern agriculture. These cats understand things.

Rutabagas are root vegetables. They grow in the ground. Most people in Moose County have eaten one at some point. Why? That is not for me to say.

I will say that my moustache began tingling violently when I passed the produce bin at Toodle’s Market yesterday, which suggests something deeply significant about the rutabaga harvest this season, though I have not yet determined what. The last time my moustache tingled near a root vegetable, someone burned down the Old Stone Mill. These things are probably unrelated. Pickax has only averaged four arsons and three murders this year, which is perfectly normal for a town of three thousand people. Who even keeps count?

The K Fund, I should note, recently allocated a modest grant to the Moose County Rutabaga Preservation Society, a tax-deductible initiative I helped establish for entirely philanthropic reasons that also happens to supply my kitchen. Is that selfish? I hardly think so. I could buy my own rutabagas, but why should I, when the community benefits from organized distribution? Besides, produce is expensive. Have you seen what Toodle’s charges?

Speaking of expenses, something has been eating my birdseed again. Squirrels, probably. Or someone more deliberate. I have my suspicions. Koko has been watching the window with that look—the look he gets before a body turns up. Yum Yum sneezed twice at dinner, which I believe constitutes a warning.

But I digress. The point is that rutabagas exist, they are edible, and Moose County grows them. Do they deserve a column? Does anything? I have written these words as a service to my readers, who I am told number in the dozens, and I trust they are grateful.

Rutabagas.