What type of veg would you call a leek?

This post reminds me why I insist on using only staffed till points, though not all supermarket staff are familiar with all items going through the till. A young checkout operator once asked me "what are these?" when I was buying peas in the pod. He'd only ever seen peas in a tin or frozen in a bag.

Does the bit of the leek you eat go down from the surface, with fine roots growing sideways from it, like carrots, turnips and parsnips or does it grow up from the surface, until someone adds more soil around it to blanch it like celery, with fine roots growing down wards from the flat base?

It is obvious that celery sticks are stems, not roots, and that carrots etc are tap roots. Leeks are nor so obvious.

Celery has joints part way up the stems, and leaves at the top of the stems. Leeks have joints too, which (to me) means that the lower parts are stems and the top parts are leaves. Of course, if you always buy both celery and leeks "trimmed", for convenience, you only get the neat lower parts and never see the leaves that were at the top of the stems.

Answer - leeks are like celery. You eat the stems. You don't eat the roots, which you cut off from the base. You trim off the outer, coarse leaves from the top, but sometimes you cook the softer green top leaves from inside.

Peaches7

Its a root veg as it grows underground like carrots parsnips etc

You eat the root of a root vegetable.

You eat the leaves of leeks, not the roots.

I would always call it a root vegetable

A leek is of the onion family, It does NOT grow underground. Look at photos of the roots…..they are the underground bits, we also used to grow them. They ARE of the onion family.

People can call it what they want.
If they want to call it a root vegetable they can.

However, they're wrong.

Sainsbury's, grocers since 1869, really should know better!

DH's grandfather, great-uncle, great-grandmother and extended family were greengrocers and fruit and vegetable wholesalers.

Would gave gone for under onions. Useful to know leeks are classed as root veg. Live and learn as they say.

Sainsbury's, grocers since 1869, really should know better!

They weren't greengrocers, though, Callistemon. They didn't start selling fruit and veg until they turned themselves into supermarkets in the 1970s. 40+ years clearly isn't quite long enough for them to learn the difference between a root and a stem... 😂

Callistemon21 technically I think you mainly eat the shank of the leek

A time lapse video of a leek from seed to harvest - www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsPduzlct2E Not relevant to which bit you think you are eating, but nice to watch.

Well I was in the ‘not root veg’ camp until I read google and got led astray so now I ll go back to my original thoughts

Nah you don’t eat the roots

MaizieD

^Sainsbury's, grocers since 1869, really should know better!^

They weren't greengrocers, though, Callistemon. They didn't start selling fruit and veg until they turned themselves into supermarkets in the 1970s. 40+ years clearly isn't quite long enough for them to learn the difference between a root and a stem... 😂

Oh ok!

It was DH's family who were selling all the fruit and veg back then 😁

Elegran

A time lapse video of a leek from seed to harvest - www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsPduzlct2E Not relevant to which bit you think you are eating, but nice to watch.

That's so sweet! From baby to child to adult.

I bought some today, don't think I can bear to eat them now

A leek is part of the onion family

I'm an allium

Callistemon21

Elegran

A time lapse video of a leek from seed to harvest - www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsPduzlct2E Not relevant to which bit you think you are eating, but nice to watch.

That's so sweet! From baby to child to adult.

I bought some today, don't think I can bear to eat them now

There is a bit in the middle where you can't see the lower part of the young plant. I think it was getting earthed up then and they didn't want the gardener's hands to be in shot. At the final harvest it was white for several inches.

Perhaps replanted several inches deeper.

In our Sainsbury's leeks are vegetables.

Sarahr

In our Sainsbury's leeks are vegetables.

Um ......

Sainsburys caused all this trouble in the first place!

What type of vegetable is a leek? A Welsh one of course!

Italians do eat the roots. www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/good-food/recipe-fried-leek-roots

Elegran

A time lapse video of a leek from seed to harvest - www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsPduzlct2E Not relevant to which bit you think you are eating, but nice to watch.

Brilliant! I don’t know how anyone could watch that and still call a leek a root vegetable. And TBH I’d still call it a ‘green’ vegetable, whether that’s strictly correct or not.

It reminded me of Attenborough’s Private Life of Plants series, so fascinating. I particularly remember footage of the tiny flowering plant that grows on walls (stonecrop?) - the flower heads waving around to find a suitable crevice to deposit their seeds in.

At Waitrose it’s with Onions not root vegetables like Potatoes or Swedes

Tanjamaltija

Italians do eat the roots. www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/good-food/recipe-fried-leek-roots

And here is the photo!