Breakfast Radishes with Butter

I celebrated the harvest of the first radishes from my garden this morning by having them for breakfast with a little butter. It's a pleasant flavor, nothing earth-shattering. Probably better with a breakfast beer instead of the coffee I was drinking.

I am not sure whether the practice of eating radishes for breakfast with butter and sea salt was originally French or English. "French breakfast radishes" are a popular cultivar for gardeners. But it was Fergus Henderson's cookbook The Whole Beast that introduced me and many other Americans to the idea of eating radishes with butter.

"Breakfast radishes and butter. I have tried them before, and I just didn't get it and I have to admit I still don't. Why would you eat radishes with butter? What does the butter add to the radish and vice versa?" asks the famous chef Francisco Migoya on his blog Being Fergus Henderson.

Migoya is a former pastry chef at the French Laundry, an assistant professor at the Culinary Institute of America, and the author of several cookbooks. His blog describes Migoya's adventures cooking his way through English chef Fergus Henderson's two cookbooks, The Whole Beast and Beyond Nose to Tail. He likes most of the recipes a lot better than the one for radishes and butter.