Anyone Eat Black Radish For Health Benefits?

flowerbug

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Italian Granny of ours never used basil in her tomato sauce and never called it gravy either. likely a regional thing as i'd never heard it called that before seeing this thread. also the wine was usually for drinking and rarely used for cooking. i think that was likely because they were such a large family and so poor. oregano, garlic, onion and tomatoes, a little cinamon depending upon what she was making. more oregano in the lasagna, less in other things, manicotti had different pasta and spinach. cheeses and other ingredients varied. she never made eggplant. all yummy (i like eggplant too). Mom picked up all these recipes and keeps making them once in a while. only real difference is that she doesn't rub her bread with bacon grease.
 

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Italy is divined in to north and south, The North much wealthier cooks with wine and cream sauces. The south is much poor and cooks much simpler. A friends father would never eat anything with a tomato gravy/sauces because that what peasants ate. He made a lot of money and could now afford to eat like the wealthy. Crazy I know
 

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haha, yep, Mom's chosen weapon, very effective... we were just talking about this last Wednesday at lunch with one of my brother's as he was the last one she broke a spoon on. at the time she smak'd him we broke out laughing because it broke, but also because she couldn't really hurt him any more... that was the end of that.
You were lucky. Mom broke a yard stick on me. I thought it was funny as she stopped. Humor stopped when Dad got home. His belt did NOT break.
 

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Italy is divined in to north and south, The North much wealthier cooks with wine and cream sauces. The south is much poor and cooks much simpler. A friends father would never eat anything with a tomato gravy/sauces because that what peasants ate. He made a lot of money and could now afford to eat like the wealthy. Crazy I know
His loss....
 

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(I've said this before: Mom would send us out for a "keen switch." We tried really thin, she sent us out for a different one. We tried really heavy, thinking that she would feel sorry for us. It didn't work, she used it ..!)

Oregano that I have grown has not appealed to me. I don't know why - maybe I should try more plants from different sources. This was true with my oregano years ago and true with what I have now. And yet, what is likely oregano at an Italian restaurant or on a pizza tastes good. At home, I grow lots of basil and I'm perfectly happy to use it to season foods. I don't want to eat it. Dried and using the powder is okay but I'm not a pesto eater.

What about marjoram. I grew some once, it had such a pleasant fragrance! I allowed the marjoram too much exposure in the greenhouse over the winter. It died. I hadn't used it for anything! Do traditional Italian cooks use marjoram and might they use it rather than oregano?

Steve
 

flowerbug

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Italy is divined in to north and south, The North much wealthier cooks with wine and cream sauces. The south is much poor and cooks much simpler. A friends father would never eat anything with a tomato gravy/sauces because that what peasants ate. He made a lot of money and could now afford to eat like the wealthy. Crazy I know

peasants is likely for grandparents because they sure wanted to get out of there when they had the chance. grandparents were both from same small town in the northern part. the old family farm is now long gone, a part of some college over near Grand Rapids, MI. reason why Dad hated garden work, being used as childhood labor. he only escaped the one family business for a short period of time as a pin setter (bowling alley) and then got sucked into the other (flooring contracting).
 

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The Italian film swept away (not Madonna version) showed how much the rich north looked down on the poor south. Even look different Northern Italy inter bred with Germany lots of blond hair and blue eyes, southern Italy olive skin dark hair
 

flowerbug

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The Italian film swept away (not Madonna version) showed how much the rich north looked down on the poor south. Even look different Northern Italy inter bred with Germany lots of blond hair and blue eyes, southern Italy olive skin dark hair

grandparents are all light, brother is darker (tans easily :) ), some of the uncles are red haired and curly, i have a bit of red hair in the brown, but now mostly gray anyways, light skinned northerners. probably some African blood in there (for the super curly hair) but don't mention that to any of them as they'll get upset (buncha racists)... lol

blue eyes, not that i'm aware of, almost all hazel/brown.
 

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Many immigrants are in agriculture and I worked with and for 2nd generation Italian ... may as well call them refugees.

The older generation had small growing operations. Let's see ... one child became a corporate lawyer but owned a flower shop, as well. His brother owned a 2nd and larger greenhouse and bought a wholesale florist business, regional market. The brothers made a big step up financially from the 1st generation.

I worked with a woman who also had 1st generation parents and 2 brothers. One brother bought a fertilizer supply outfit, ag service. The younger brother must be the biggest real estate developer in the region.

I had something of a relationship with that guy through his sister and niece - family taking care of their own. I liked how he carried his responsibilities. I liked my boss' family, florist people. They were 90% about hard work but there was a good share of interest in humanity. Boss's family was from Naples the co-worker's family was Sicilian. The parents beat as hasty an exit outta Italy as they could following WW2.

One of DW's doctors had an interesting name. I asked him about it. It's Arabic, he told me but he can't trace his family beyond Sicily and his parents were also refugees. Very nice, compassionate guy ...

Steve
 

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My fathers parent where from Naples. Ellis island records showed they where 15 and 24 had 2 suitcases and $5 cash. One of their sons lived the American dream he went from working in mail room to president of company making him one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.
 

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