Akiyo asks:

Do we all eat rutabagas? Some cooking sites say it's french, it's southern, it's from Sweden. But then I saw this: http://www.rutabagacurl.com/. We upstate NYers love 'em. Why? \(*o*)/

No, we don't all eat rutabagas. I know this for fact, because I have never eaten one, but they sound like punishment. And I'm not alone: the hardy vegetable was a food of last resort during World War I when grain and potato crops were lost to, you know, all that war and shit. This gave it a bad reputation as the vegetable you eat when there is nothing else left and life sucks about as hard as it possibly can.

The other reason rutabagas suck is that they grow best in cold, cold climates (hence the theory that it comes from Sweden, which, as I understand it, is so cold that the icy grip of death is considered a warm hearth by comparison). That would also explain the popularity in upstate New York. If Sweden is Satan's freezer, then upstate New York is at least the ice chest he keeps beer cold on business trips to collect the souls of the damned. Basically, two things can grow in upstate New York: rutabagas and despair.