Radishes never seemed mysterious. When I was growing up, they sometimes appeared
as a side dish along with some slices of cucumber. It was like an instant salad, both spicy and colorful. Once in a while my mother put sliced raw
radishes and small chunks of cucumber into a bowl of sour cream. That would be our lunch when she’d run out of
everything else.
When I began cooking, I ignored radishes unless a recipe
called for them, which was almost never.
