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RUTABAGAS

In our 2003-2004 catalog, we disclosed that we did temperature calibration for a living, and while we do it very, very well, it isn’t our hobby. Our hobby is growing prize-winning rutabagas. We haven’t won any prizes yet, but we keep planting potential prize-winning rutabagas anyway. The rutabaga thing seemed to catch a few people by surprise! (Probably the same people who are wondering what rutabagas have to do with our web site.)

Several of our customers took an interest in our rutabaga hobby and wondered why we picked it instead of something more American, like… bowling maybe? These are questions any temperature calibration company worth its salt should be willing to answer for you, and we’re no exception.

Before we take you to the moment of our decision, I’m going to share with you one of the lines from Country Living magazine that summed up our feelings best when they said, “Mild tasting and nutrient-rich, this homely root vegetable deserves a lot more attention than it gets.” As temperature metrologists, we struck an instant bond with the rutabaga.

Some of you might think a rutabaga is merely a turnip, but that’s not true. Both turnips and rutabagas are members of the Cruciferae family. Back East this refers to a Mafia family. In Utah, we’re talking about cabbages. We’re talking about cabbages back east too, but that’s another story. Actually, like a lot of extended families, rutabagas are related to turnips, cabbages and cauliflowers.

The first time I heard of a rutabaga, I was in college. While I was hanging around a local pub with a couple of my college buddies from Mississippi, they described to me an experience they had had with something that was bluish-green and smooth like a cabbage but more elongated than a turnip. It had a thick leafy neck with prominent secondary roots as well as the taproot.

Of course at the time, they said they were talking about the aliens that had picked them up once after a night of cold beverages. But upon intense, cross-examination, they admitted that there was a possibility they might have confused rutabagas with aliens. However, it would still be nearly 25 years before I saw a rutabaga, or an alien.

In the early seventies my consciousness toward vegetables was raised once more when I read an article about a scientist at the University of Georgia, or somewhere close to there, who was experimenting with plants. He had developed a theory that plants have feelings. Basically, he contended that when the plants were exposed to kind words and classical music the plants blossomed. When they were exposed to harsh words and hard rock music like Joe Cocker or the Doors, they wilted. (That was the opposite of my college experience. When we were exposed to Joe Cocker or the Doors, we didn’t wilt, we just wanted another beer.)

I never heard his conclusions, but I’ve always wondered what country and western music might have done to his plants?

I guess the natural extension of “does a plant have feelings?” is “does a plant have intelligence also?” Exactly what kind of IQ test would you give a turnip? I’ve never tested a turnip’s IQ, but I’ve interviewed a few.

Okay, so you probably think we started raising prize-winning rutabagas because we assumed they’re smarter than turnips. After all, we like classical music! However, we sometimes like a little Steppenwolf too, if we’re far enough away from the garden so the rutabagas can’t hear us. But like a lot of things, our foray into rutabagas was completely unplanned.

We weren’t looking for a hobby; we were simply looking for a new catalog cover. We needed some props for the cover picture and decided to put our instruments on top of a stack of books so you could see exactly how minuscule we’ve been able to make our products in comparison to everybody else’s tanks. We decided to use garden books because garden books have pretty covers. It’s the pictures that sell garden books. Nobody ever actually reads them!

While I was out shopping for a stack of garden books with pretty covers, I found a seed rack, and the package of seeds with the best picture was a rutabaga seed package. A couple of days after the two years or so it took us to get the catalog done, Randy brought the rutabaga seeds home and planted them. And then came the miracle of birth.

I could share the whole history of rutabagas with you, but then you wouldn’t have a reason to visit our web site. Not only does our web site have rutabaga history and recipes, it has metrology crossword puzzles, temperature calibration cartoons, in-depth information about our products, a collection of great reference articles on ITS-90, our popular temperature calibration newsletter “Random News” and of course a way to talk to all of us whenever you want. Someday no one will offer you more on a web site than we do. Just be patient while we figure out how to do that.

Try a little butter with your rutabagas; you’ll like it!

Yours truly,