In North America, the humble daikon is mostly planted to be left in the ground
Across Asia the long white radish goes into kimchi, pickles, turnip cake and bánh mì. In North America farmers mostly never harvest it: they sow it so its giant taproot can drill through compacted soil, soak up nutrients, then rot away and leave channels for next year's potatoes.
Daikon is a mild winter radish, a variety of Raphanus sativus, native to continental East Asia and known for its fast-growing leaves and long white root. The Japanese name means big root; Hindi speakers call it mooli; Chinese cooks usually just say white radish. Language tangles abound. In Singapore it is sometimes called white carrot, because the Mandarin and Hokkien words for carrot and radish are so alike, which explains the title of a street-food guide, There's No Carrot in Carrot Cake. In Hong Kong it is often mislabelled turnip.
Not every daikon is white. Korean mu is shorter, stouter and greenish near the top, and the heirloom watermelon radish hides a vivid pink centre under dull green skin. Chinese and Indian types handle heat better than Japanese ones, and a variety called Long White Icicle grows well in southern English gardens. Without enough water, the flesh turns tough and sharp.
The kitchen uses are endless. Japanese cooks make pickles such as takuan, cut paper-thin ribbons of it to accompany sashimi and eat dried strips called kiriboshi-daikon; the leaves are one of the seven spring herbs eaten at a New Year festival. Bangladeshis grate it with chilli, coriander and fish into mulo bhorta, Koreans cube it into kkakdugi kimchi and Vietnamese pickle it with carrot for bánh mì. Raw, it is 95 percent water and supplies 18 calories per 100 grams, with a useful dose of vitamin C. Tokyo's Nerima Ward even stages a contest to pull its local daikon, which is notoriously hard to extract.
On farms the root's size is the point. American agencies call it oilseed radish, while growers use names like tillage or forage radish. Planted as a winter cover crop, it breaks up hardpan layers, pulls deep nutrients upward so they are not lost to leaching and, when frost kills it, releases stored nitrogen in spring. It also suppresses weeds. In Japan, daikon even has an industrial job, helping prepare metal surfaces for traditional chemical patination.
Source: Daikon
