The world's most valuable radish

27.12.2023 - 18:07 / bbc.com

The radishes grown for La Noche de Rabanos (The Night of the Radishes) in Oaxaca, Mexico, are a world away from the small, thin, red and white sliced radishes that are commonly found alongside lime wedges and bowls of salsa on the tables of most taco restaurants in Mexico.

In fact, most of the 20 tonnes of giant, overfertilized radishes harvested in the days leading up to Christmas aren't edible. Instead, they're used as artist's canvases and hand-carved into the most intricate and elaborate festive scenes for a competition like no other in the world.

For the event, which is held annually on 23 December and is celebrating its 126th edition this year, the competition countdown for hundreds of Oaxacans begins with the radish harvest on the morning of 19 December, just four days before final designs are judged and a winner is chosen.

Sharpened knives, worn shovels, pointed picks and thick gloves are loaded into the backseats of cars headed for El Tequio Forest, a vast, arid expanse stretching across one of Oaxaca's many mountainous valleys. Intensive droughts this year have made the ground particularly hard, and the texture of the dry earth is closer to sand than soil.

But just beneath the craggy surface around the forest's northern tip, rows of ripe, bulbous radishes, which have become an indispensable part of Oaxaca's festive calendar for more than a century, lie ready to be harvested.

"They're bigger, heavier and uglier than ever this year," Senorino Martinez told me excitedly as we jaunted over to his field. Martinez has headed up Oaxaca's radish farming for the celebration for more than 30 years.

From a few metres away, we could make out the crimson crowns and thick red stems of 20 tonnes of giant radishes breaking through the cracked ground.

"The artisans will cut these into shapes and sizes you would never have thought possible," he remarked as he nodded to the youngest farmer, Sergio, who planted his feet around a peaking plant and began to wrestle a bloated radish the size of my forearm from the soil.

"There will be hundreds more in all shapes and sizes… more than ever this year to keep up with the demand of the Night of the Radishes," Martinez said, before adding: "One of them is gonna make someone a lot of money too."

While Mexico is home to famous festive celebrations, including Christmas Posadas and Three Kings' Day, there are arguably none more unusual than Oaxaca's La Noche de Rabanos.

The ritual dates to the late 19th Century, when Oaxaca's market vendors would hustle for buyer attention in the Zocalo, the city's main plaza, by creatively exhibiting their seasonal produce to Christmas shoppers. In search of an edge over competitors, they'd cut their fruits and vegetables into eye-catching