Why Carve Radishes for Christmas?

Night of the Radishes. Every December twenty third in Wahaka, the main Square comes alive with sculptures of dragons, balligators, local celebrities, religious figures, and even politicians, all carved from huge wonky shaped radishes in shades of deep purple to red,

with contrasting creamy white interiors revealed by the carvings. The Night of the Radishes is a one hundred and twenty seven year old Christmas time tradition in this predominantly Catholic city, where artists vie for the best sculpted radish display, which can earn cash prizes worth several hundred bucks and year

long bragging rights. The radishes are native to Mexico. They were brought over by Spanish colonizers back in the fifteen hundreds, and these and other European crops and livestock spread among the many indigenous peoples already living there during the colonial period. Wahaka was a very small city situated in a lush, fertile valley. Harvests from local farms were so plentiful that farmers brought much of their bounty to sell at the city market. At the time, the market was set up

near the cathedral in what's now Wahaca's main Square. This story goes that at some point in these seventeen hundreds or so, the crop of radishes was so abundant that a portion of them weren't dug up during the spring

harvest and were instead left to continue growing. And radishes will grow far past the cute, round, ping pong ball sized things that you usually get in the grocery store, with limbs and bulbs growing off of that main tuber, so that December, someone possibly some Dominican monks finally pulled up those and thought these look weirdly like people or like demons, and were so entertained that they showed them off that year at the Christmas market in that main square,

possibly leading to intentional copycats in the following years. The tradition of carving radishes may have started as a way for clever farmers and other market sellers to lure customers to their stalls. Wahaka had even at the time, a long standing tradition of beautiful, intricate wood carving, and it weirdly makes sense that local wood carvers took a fancy to the giant radishes on display and decided to carve them into, for example, Nativity scenes to entice Christmas market shoppers.

In eighteen ninety seven, Wahaka's municipal president decided to make the Ratish carved Nativity scene tradition official and created a competition to be held on December twenty third. It became a yearly thing and expanded to include a greater variety of figures. To participate in the Night of the Bratish's Carving competition, entrants need to use specific radishes cultivated by the government on land near the city's airport. The city plants them over a three month period so that by

harvest time they come in different sizes. Some are small, but they can get quite big, up to around thirty inches long that's eighty centimeters and weighing over six and a half pounds or about three kilos. Some can be as big around as a human head. Each entrant is assigned a plot number based on the order in which they signed up. Then, four days before the event, entrants are allowed to harvest the ratishes in their assigned plot. As of twenty seventeen, fourteen metric tons of radishes were

harvested for the festival from that land. Once the ratishes are harvested, participants spend the next few days and sometimes sleepless nights, cleaning and carving them. On December twenty third, they head over to the square to assemble their often elaborate m piece Ratish displays. Again, in twenty seventeen, one hundred and forty three Ratish crafters displayed their carved works,

including eighty two kids. Visitors who now come by the thousands, stroll through the square to watch the artist's fine tune their root vegetable masterpieces, among music, food and fireworks. Around nine o'clock that night, judging takes place based on beauty, technical skill, and creativity, and then three winners are named in each category. The two primary categories in the modern day Night of the Rats's competition are traditional or free.

The traditional category requires the Ratish displays to reflect Wahwking culture. In the free category, your radishes can do whatever you want. There are additional categories for scenes made with corn husks and scenes made with dried flowers. The masterpieces these artists create would be impressive even if they were not made

of vegetables. Look them up when you get a chain, but think intricate, mission style, architecture, Egyptian gods, scenes from Mezcal, production replicas of Michelangelo and Da Vinci's works, and yes, many Nativity scenes. Radishes are, of course, a perishable vegetable, and one of the biggest challenges besides having the skill or talent to carve radishes, is keeping them fresh so that they're still perky and bright red and white throughout

the night of the competition. Participants have different techniques for this, but it usually involves regularly doubting them with water. Today's episode is based on the article Mexico's Night of the Radishes, a quirky Christmas predition on how Stuffworks dot Com, written by Jennifer Walker. Journey brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and

is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,