“Root vegetables” is a relatively generic description of veggies including starchy ones that grow underground. The plants that grow root vegetables may have other culinary uses. For instance, turnips, a classic root vegetable, are famous not only for their underground bulbous veggie but also for the greens. Turnip greens, the above ground part of the plant, are a popular food in the Southern United States.

To make matters confusing, root vegetables aren’t always roots. Some veggies we eat are actually bulbs instead. A few examples of bulbs we eat include onions, garlic and shallots. Many people may differentiate onions and garlic as more spice than vegetable, but they are considered root vegetables.

Potatoes are usually labeled as tubers, and again, we may think of these as more of a starch than a vegetable. Despite that, they are a part of the category of root vegetables. Plenty of other veggies fall into this category too.

Among the varieties of these veggies you’ll find potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, carrots, beets, parsnips, jicama, taro, leeks and Jerusalem artichokes, to name just a few. Sometimes root vegetables form a major part of a culture’s diet. This is certainly true of roots like yams, taro, and potatoes in certain parts of the world.

Other times underground vegetables are important to a culture but are used to flavor main meals or as an important accessory to meals. For instance, carrots are excellent in the latter respect but wouldn’t likely be used as a main food. Ginger, on the other hand, which is a rhizome, is delicious when added as a spice and many cultures enjoy either fresh ginger, pickled thin slices of ginger, or dried powder ginger to flavor foods.

Due to the tremendous variety expressed by the term root vegetables, it may be difficult to know what the term refers to in most conversations. In classic American cooking, people may specifically mean things like carrots, leeks, potatoes, parsnips and onions, and certainly not things like peanuts, though these are sometimes called groundnuts. One thing that can be generalized about most “underground” foods is that they require especially good washing practices.

Since many of our foods are grown in manure, dirt and/or compost, you will really want to take your time cleaning root vegetables. Invest in a good scrubbing brush designed for veggies to thoroughly clean things like carrots, leeks, beets or potatoes. You may note small pebbles imbedded in larger root veggies, which you should cut or dig out when you’re cleaning them. Some people prefer to peel things like potatoes or carrots to avoid heavy cleaning of these vegetables, but others say it’s much more nutritious to leave the skin intact when you can.