How to roast root vegetables

How did our forebears from the Northeast and Midwest feed themselves in winter when there was no refrigeration or garden-fresh food?

Actually, there was plenty of refrigeration right outside their doors, in the root cellars they built to store food in a more-or-less temperature-controlled environment. Ten feet down in the earth, the winter temperature is pretty much a steady 50 degrees. Throughout the northern states, you can find root cellars built as far back as the 18th century on farms. A sloping door opened to a flight of steps leading down to a chamber, usually about 10 feet by 15 feet, with a vaulted stone ceiling.

Water filled concrete troughs along the sides. Metal milk cans full of the day’s milk — ready to be made into butter or cheese — were set in the water, keeping the milk cool. Heads of cabbage were left on their stems and hung upside down from the ceiling. Or cabbage was sliced to make fermented sauerkraut that stored perfectly well in a crock, submerged in salt water. Ditto with summer’s cucumbers that became winter’s pickles. Fruits were sliced and strung on cords to dry. Apples were made into sauce and canned or cooked into apple butter. Grapes were juiced and made into wine. Hams and bacon were salted and smoked.

The rest of the root cellar’s space was taken up with an apple barrel, and most importantly, root crops. Barrels held potatoes, beets, carrots, radishes, shallots, turnips, parsnips and more. Onions and garlic were braided and hung.

Here in Sonoma County, a lot of root crops can simply stay in the ground over the winter, to be dug up as needed. You don’t need a root cellar when carrots and beets, potatoes and parsnips, turnips and rutabagas store in the garden during a Mediterranean climate’s relatively mild winters.

One way to visit our forebears’ dining tables is to recreate what would have been staples at their hearty meals. Two hundred years ago, most of them were farm families. They worked hard and needed lots of nutritious food to maintain their energy. They would have eaten mostly what they’d put up for winter provisions.

Meat wouldn’t have been a problem. It can be harvested and butchered at most times of the year, although early December was often the best time for slaughtering pigs, salting and smoking the hams and bacon, rendering lard and keeping it cold in the ice house.

If a winter dinner was fresh pork or smoked ham, it would be accompanied by home-canned apple sauce or apple butter and root vegetables, especially potatoes. It’s a simple meal that sustained our great-great-great-grandparents, and it can sustain us, too. Root vegetables sweeten, caramelize and intensify their flavors when roasted. They’re just right for a winter’s delicious feast.

Roast pork loin, pork tenderloin or ham, plus applesauce, are appropriate to accompany a medley of roasted root vegetables served as a celebration of winter and the imminent arrival of spring.

Roasted Root Vegetables

Makes 6-8 servings

3 pounds root vegetables (beets, carrots, garlic, parsnips, potatoes, turnips, radishes, rutabaga and onions)

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

2 tablespoons chopped rosemary and thyme or parsley, plus more for garnish

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Scrub vegetables to remove dirt, peel if desired and cut into 1- or 2-inch pieces.

Place the vegetables on a large baking sheet. Drizzle oil over vegetables and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss to coat evenly. Put the vegetables in the preheated oven and roast, without disturbing, for 20 minutes.

Turn the vegetables and continue cooking for another 15 minutes. Add the herbs and stir to distribute. Continue to roast until the vegetables are crispy on the outside, about 10 more minutes.