Carving vegetables is a peculiar practice around the world. In the United States, we are most familiar with the pumpkins children and adults alike sculpt into gruesome or silly Jack-o-lanterns to put on display for the trick-or-treaters making their rounds to gather candy. We think of carving vegetables as a fall festivity, certainly not for Christmastime, where we make snowmen and sing carols, right? Well Noche de Rabanos, or “Night of the Radishes” goes against the practices that we commonly assume that the rest of the world follows.
In Oaxaca, Mexico, the radish takes the stage as a vessel for art along the streets. This tradition, officially starting in 1897, is where artisans and shopkeepers carve intricate designs into radishes. Traditionally, this peculiar art had the purpose of drawing customers into the marketplace on their way home from the Christmas church service on the 23rd of December. Nowadays, the tradition is established so that those who do not attend church also make their way into the plaza to catch a glimpse of what new designs the artists were able to think up.
The radishes used in the carvings are grown to immense sizes, usually around 3 kilograms, or 7 pounds, and are usually 50 centimeters, or 20 inches long. To give context to those who may not know how unusually massive these radishes are, a common winter radish in the United States that you could buy at a grocery store is about 12 inches long and weigh around 4.5 grams or 0.01 pounds. These Mexican radishes are grown to extreme sizes! These radishes are inedible though—the massive size decreases the flavor and makes them very bitter, so they are just used as decoration, much like how in the United States, you would not use the pumpkin you carve and display for Halloween to make a pumpkin pie afterwards! Some of the carvings are sold for steep prices that the customers use for decorations and displays at Christmas dinner. There is also a contest where judges assess which radish carving is the most intricate and award the most beautiful creation’s artist with a 12,000-peso prize, which is about 620 United States dollars!
The radishes are harvested around December 18, so the artists have about 5 days to work on their carvings. Popular carvings include nativity scenes, local wildlife like snakes and alligators, architecture, and Mayan imagery. Although animals and architecture are not common symbols around Christmastime in America, we do utilize the nativity scene around the holidays in decorations and various festivities, so this holiday is not completely obscure and unrelatable.
The festivities for this Mexican holiday are not solely focused on radishes though. Since radishes, like most produce, begin to brown after they have been exposed to oxygen, the citizens do have to have other non-radish-based festivities involved in this celebration. On Christmas eve, there are local handcrafted floats that circulate around the marketplace and in the streets. On Christmas day, there are fireworks in the plaza and traditional Christmas dinners are made and served.
Although this holiday originally seemed quite bizarre to me, it helped me realize that this is what people who do not live in the United States think of some of our common practices, like the carving of pumpkins at Halloween. In essence, this holiday has many similarities to both Halloween and Christmas in the United States. Next time you find yourself pondering what to do around Christmastime and are in the mood to experience something unique, grab your loved ones and take a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico to partake in these interesting cultural festivities that bring such joy and cultural pride to the citizens that practice them every year.