Root vegetables
Root vegetables are vegetables where the root is the main part of the food. They can belong to different plant families and look very different. For example, carrots are an apiales, beets are in the amaranth family, and swede is a cruciferous plant.
Turnip
Turnip ( Brassica campestris rapifera ) belongs to the cruciferous family ( Brassicaceae ), and is found in several different forms. We distinguish between flat turnip, round turnip and long turnip, but there are also transitions between these. The color of the flesh in the roots is yellow or white. The skin of the above-ground part of the tuber is usually green, yellow-green or red-violet. The leaves grow in a rosette without a common root collar.
White Maine Coon
An older Norwegian variety that was added to the variety lists in 1963 and has been grown in Norway for over 100 years. In 2015, Solhatt was given the responsibility for maintaining this variety. It is resistant to clump rot, has flat roots with white flesh and a high dry matter content.
Target turnip
Målselvnepe has a sweet and mild turnip flavor and is only grown north of the Arctic Circle. Målselvnepe has a long history in Norway that stretches back to the Pomor trade between Russian and northern Norwegian traders in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Målselv turnip is juicy and mild with a distinct turnip flavor that is somewhat reminiscent of turnips. It has a stronger flavor than regular Maine turnips. It is believed to originate from turnip seeds imported from Russia sometime in the early 1800s. It is known that turnips were being bred from seeds even before 1850.
To obtain the characteristic taste of Målselvnepe, it must be grown in a cool climate with an absence of darkness. The optimal growing conditions are therefore found north of the Arctic Circle. There, Målselvnepe has been grown for a long time, so that the turnip variety has adapted to the local growing conditions. Målselvnepe is currently managed by the Senja Higher Education Department Gibostad, which is also the owner and responsible for maintaining the turnip variety. The variety also has its own protection under the “Regulations on the Protection of Målselvnepe from Northern Norway as a Geographical Indication”.