Yes, Rudy is apparently the very enthusiastic spokesrutabaga for the Ontario Rutabaga Producers Marketing Board's Rudy's Rutabaga Recipe Register (undated, but mentioned in a newspaper from January 7, 1981, so likely from 1980 or earlier. It looks like that page has a rant about the worst recipes from 1980 that is right up my alley, but alas, I am too cheap to sign up for Newspapers.com to read the whole thing, so I just got the gist of it from the garbled extract available for free). I love Rudy's huge smile, the fact that it looks like he's doing a little dance, and the way his arms seem to be coming out from where his ears should be.
He is so excited because rutabagas can be thrown into a lot of things. Like Waldorf Salad? (I'm not sure why you would, but Waldorf Salad appears in enough places that a lot of people must have loved it, once upon a time, including the grandma who was always trying to force me to eat things I hated.)
Throw some rutabagas into it to replace the more-typical celery. Hell, replace the fresh grapes with raisins and the walnuts with peanuts too. That way, people will be even more confused when you call it a Waldorf Salad. And Rudy will dance with glee at their confusion.
Need a side dish? Rudy recommends scalloping those rutabagas.
Throw in some apples and brown sugar, and this is a dish that seems dessert-y, can still be eaten at the main meal (leaving room for actual dessert), and doesn't contain Jell-O!
But if you want to go savory, you can use rutabaga as a savory stuffing.
There's nothing quite like a turkey packed full of sausage, bread, onions, and rutabaga.
There's also a Rutabaga Puff, which looks like a very-slightly-sweet vegetable custard.
But rutabaga is not just for salads, stuffings, and dessert-adjacent side dishes! It can be straight-up dessert too. Since previously-listed recipes featured cinnamon, mace, and ginger, it should be no surprise that there's a recipe for Ontario Rutabaga Spice Cake.
I kind of want to see tomato soup thrown into this one too, just so it can be a veggie-based spice cake mashup.
But if announcing to the world that there are rutabagas in the dessert just doesn't seem like a great idea, Rudy gives his blessing to Golden Cheesecake as well.
It's a pie that is certain to inspire diners to ask, "What's wrong with the cream cheese?"
And Rudy will pop out of nowhere to laugh and do his little rutabaga dance. And everybody will realize that he's not wearing pants. He never wears anything. The cream cheese is the least of their worries....
My first thought: is he regular size Rudy or pocket size?
ReplyDeleteI also had to think for a moment about the grandma who was always trying to feed you food you didn't like. Technically it could be both of them, but one was more likely than the other to do that.
Ha! I'll say Regular Sized Rudy.
DeleteOne grandma occasionally made things that were not so good just because she wanted to try new stuff, and she'd try to feed them to everybody. It seemed more of an oversight based on enthusiasm than actual malice. Sometimes I thought forcing me to expand my horizons into things I hated was the actual mission statement of the other grandma. She was dedicated.