Remember how everybody made fun of the bill that would have made the beagle Vermont’s state dog?
Now we have the proposed state turnip.
No, not really a state turnip. This bill would make a turnip the state vegetable. But not just any turnip. Only the Gilfeather turnip, mostly grown in and around Wardsboro.
From Wardsboro Elementary School on Tuesday, a dozen students led by teacher Christine Shakespeare and principal Rosemary FitzSimons told the House Committee on Forest and Agriculture Products to consider designating their hometown’s prized root as Vermont’s state vegetable.
The bill can be seen here.
The students were told by Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, that the bill would not pass this year, but she said many members of the committee supported it.
In fact, Partridge said Gilfeather turnips had a celebrity status at her family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas tables growing up, and she said she would make a soup from them and bring it to the committee so they can taste the gnarly root vegetable for themselves — further testimony.
“It was my mother’s favorite thing to have at Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Partridge said.
Members of the committee were given wool-felted Gilfeather turnip pins, one of many items handcrafted and sold as part of fundraisers for the annual Gilfeather Turnip Festival, held in October each year in the town that loves its turnips. The festival benefits the town’s library, the children told the committee.
Each of the students held a letter of the word Gilfeather, named for the farmer John Gilfeather who is credited with developing the turnip that bears his name. Gilfeather lived in Wardsboro, the students said, and is buried there.
The turnip — really a cross between a turnip and a rutabaga — goes back to the late 1800s; Vermont would become the 14th state in the union to have a state vegetable if the legislation passes next year at the Statehouse.
On the nutritional side, the committee was told that the fleshy turnip provides potassium, calcium, vitamins K and A, and beta carotene.
The committee was assured that, “If the Gilfeather turnip becomes the Vermont state vegetable, more people will know about it and eat it. It will end up on school lunch menus. This will mean there will be more healthy Vermonters for generations to come,” one student read from his text.
“Like the Gilfeather turnip, we are tough-skinned, put down strong roots, and after a tough challenge [a winter frost], come out sweeter,” student Trevor Plimpton said. “We are Vermont strong!”
Rep. Emily Long, D-Newfane, a co-sponsor of the turnip bill, said she was “absolutely thrilled to see the kids here. I heard they were really good, I saw one of their teachers, and she was glowing!”
“I grew up on a small farm, my parents grew nothing but Gilfeathers,” Long said. “My mother used to make turnips for Thanksgiving every single year, always Gilfeather.”
