A French Treat all About Radishes

By Dana McMahan FoodConnect Louisville dana@foodconnect.com I’m definitely a Francophile. I studied French in high school and college, go to France as often as I can drag my husband or a willing girlfriend, and am going to French-speaking Canada next month (a trip planned when the euro kept soaring against the U.S. dollar). Of all things French, I think food and the French ideals around food are what I love most. And though the French are certainly known for ultra rich and decadent foods, it is often their simplest dishes that are the most pleasing. Arriving in Paris this past spring, my first stop was for a baguette with camembert and butter. It was perfection and I couldn’t stop smiling as I ate the crusty baguette filled with the creamiest, must luscious cheese. I can’t get many of the most perfect French foods at home in Louisville, but I can follow the idea of simple, delicious ingredients. One such treat came to mind last week when I received the cutest, sweetest little red radishes in my weekly farm share. A quintessential French start to a meal is simply radishes, whipped butter and sea salt. I took this as an opportunity to raid my French sea salt that I brought home from a trip. A bowl of whipped butter (just whip room temperature butter with a fork, it couldn’t be easier), some sliced radishes and a small dish of the coarse sea salt and we had a lovely and delicious amuse-bouche to take to a friend’s for dinner. The bite of the radish, the decadent swirls of butter and crunchy salt crystals proved to be addictive. We ended up slicing the additional radishes we’d placed on the dish as garnish because we couldn’t stop eating.