Jackie French gardening: Don't turn your nose up at turnips

As children, we had the freedom of almost any kitchen in the area, but we tried to avoid the turnip ones. Besides, the turnip neighbours were rarely the biscuit bakers – the ones who made the "run away laughings", the slightly misshapen biscuits mums, aunts and grandmothers gave to kids, anyone's kids, who looked hopefully in at the back door.

In turnip households, turnips were boiled, mashed or used to bulk up Irish stew or scrag-end of mutton, because they were cheap and very easy to grow, or at least easy to grow badly. Given that there are many other vegetables that grow easily and large and taste good, such as sweet potatoes, silver beet and even marrows, which may not taste of anything but don't stink out the kitchen, turnip mashers possibly lacked refinement of taste as well as smell.

A hot-weather turnip of the old-fashioned variety becomes all too pungent in hot weather. They are also stringy and squidgy between the strings. They are, in fact, possibly the most unappetising things that it's possible to grow and then force yourself to eat. The only really good thing to do with them was to carve them into weird faces to keep away the ghouls and ghosts at Halloween – the origin of the American carved pumpkins that we now associate with Halloween.

The custom began with turnips. A flickering turnip head looks far more menacing to a ghoul or ghost than a large, friendly pumpkin, or maybe the ghouls and ghosts were afraid that they might have to eat the turnip, rather than be scared by its carved face.

However, turnips were and are hardy. They will grow in the cold and heat and through droughts. Pick them young and they are edible – just, with a lot of boiling or baking, plus butter and the scent of something else very good to eat as well, such as fresh bread or roast stuffed shoulder of mutton, which I loved then but don't eat now.

However, I do eat turnips now, just not boiled and mashed. The turnaround came about 30 years ago. "Eat this," said a friend, the sort who served young artichokes simmered with new peas into a wonderful sludgy stew, or giant horse mushrooms sauteed with lots of garlic, parsley and a little olive oil. When she offered something vegetably and said "Eat", you were silly not to, so I did.

It was small, white and crisp, like an apple but more savoury than sweet. I had crunched it all, before I asked, "What is it?"

"A Japanese turnip," she said. She had bought the seeds from a London company (legally imported). She let hers go to seed and I began to grow them too. Then, within a few years, Australian seed companies were selling them too.

A Japanese turnip has crunchy white flesh. It can get a bit rank and stringy if you let it get too mature, which is just before the stem grows tall and the base gets dry in late spring, but in summer they are small, crisp and juicy, and in winter larger and just slightly fragrant, still with a turnip smell, but just a gentle whiff, rather than a pong.

You can still eat them raw, but by mid to late winter they are best sliced, very thinly, fried in a tempura batter, or grated, served with chopped parsley and vinaigrette, or light sour cream with a sauce of fresh whipped cream with a tinge of wasabi mixed into it. Today's turnips can be peeled and added to stews without making the kitchen stink, although don't go overboard. Turnip should still be a minor ingredient, unless you are nostalgic for the scent of boiled tea towels through your house.

As for growing, the newer varieties are still hardy in heat and cold, germinate quickly, outgrow most weeds, and quickly produce a heavy crop with little work. (Old varieties are still sold to grow for cattle food, which makes yet another reason I am glad I am not a cow.) Superb soil gives the best results and average soil still good turnips, but poor soil yields only tiny roots and tops that go to seed prematurely. If your turnips fail to thrive, you know you need to do some major soil regeneration before you even dream of growing lettuces or tomatoes, much less celery, which turns stringy without true loam about the roots. Winter turnips are also good roasted.

You can eat the young tops, too, stir-fried or in any way you would use currently fashionable kale. By the end of winter, they can be tough and stringy or not, depending on the state of your soil and if they've been tended and watered.

However, they must be eaten fresh. Turnip tops wither soon after being picked, and shop-bought turnips, even the Japanese varieties, have more of the old-fashioned turnip whiff – not a stink, but still not a crisp, delicious delight.

You need to grow your own, and with turnips, that isn't hard at all.

This is the time to:

* Accept that those bright autumn leaves are dull and daggy and rake them up or run over them with a lawn mower with a catcher on it to collect them as mulch;

* Water those poor pot plants – cold can dry them out as much as heat;

* Float camellias in bowls of water, even if it does feel a bit 1960s la-di-da, although if you have a variety that won't fall off the stem, stick them in vases too;

* Arrange great, fat vases of grevilleas too: in winter we need garden scents even more, with so much less growing around us;

* Think of your favourite fruit – be realistic and choose an apple, plum or whatever grows best in your area, or go wild and plant it anyway, with a lot of frost protection if necessary – if I hadn't done that 40 years ago, we wouldn't have custard apples, cherimoyas, avocados and tamarillos now;

* Mooch around the markets, buy a fruit and plant the seeds – they may not spout until spring or mid-summer, or be true to type, but they'll be free and fun and I've never known a seedling not to fruit, and I've grown hundreds.

PS: Don't try planting those black specks in a banana. True seeds were bred out of commercial bananas many generations ago, but grape seeds, pawpaw seeds (try growing a potted one in a sunny corner of the living room) and orange seeds will grow a treat.

I didn't realise it was soup time until others made it for me. For some reason, our hot winter lunches have been toasted sandwiches or sausage rolls, which, while they may be rolls, are not sausages, but that recipe is for another time.

The first was a plain pumpkin soup. The other was the most gorgeous lamb neck and lemon barley soup. Both need bread – either good, fresh bread or toasted not-so-good bread – to give flavour and substance.

2kg dark-orange and firm-fleshed pumpkin, peeled
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 litres chicken stock
4 brown onions, peeled and chopped

Optional: 200g butter, 2 potatoes, 1 tbsp good curry spices, 1 can tomatoes or a container of frozen ones. Boil, mash and eat hot, or freeze until needed.

4kg lamb neck chops
6 litres chicken stock
8 brown onions peeled and chopped
1 bulb garlic, peeled and chopped
1 cup barley
1 bunch silverbeet, leaf only, chopped
juice of 2 lemons, or more to taste
1 tbsp brown sugar, or to taste
chopped oregano, fresh, to taste

Simmer the chops in the stock for two hours. Chill and skim off the fat.

Add everything else except the lemon juice and silver beet and simmer until the barley is soft, between one and two hours. Add more stock or water if needed – the rate of evaporation will depend on many factors, including whether you have a lid on the pot. Do not boil, or the meat will be stringy and the barley will turn gluggy. Simmer only. Don't add the lemon juice at this point or the onion will become a bit like tiny bits of plastic.

About five minutes before serving, add the silver beet and lemon juice. Season to taste: ie, add salt or more juice or more sugar or more stock, and the oregano bit by bit, so that the scent doesn't overpower it. Serve hot. It freezes wonderfully. It can be thick (a stew) or thin (a soup).

Chicken can be used instead of lamb neck chops, but the result will be different. It has been a long time since I ate red meat, but I loved this. Maybe in mid-winter, I needed it or the childhood carnivore resurfaced when I wasn't looking.