Vegetarian anchovy imitation: a rather odd recipe from antiquity

The following recipe is more of an oddity than a serious dish: 3rd century scholar Athenaeus, in his Deipnosophistae (“Scholars at the Dining Table“), tells the story of Nicomedes, king of Bithynia (northern Asia Minor, in modern Turkey), who felt a sudden desire for anchovy while being on a mission in Scythia, far away from the sea. His cook prepared him an imitation of the fish based on turnips or radishes and accounts, swearing by Zeus, that the king and his guests were amazed by the likeliness. The anecdote ends with the sentence: “The cook and the poet are just alike: the art of each lies in his brain.“ (Translation after the Loeb Classical Library Edition, 1927, Vol. I) Although I like to agree with this quote, I am quite doubtful about this turnip really turning out to taste anything like anchovy. I haven’t tried before, so this is an experiment. As I like radish a lot as it is, nothing can go wrong. Salted radish is, by the way, a popular beer snack in Bavaria. And did you know you can also deep-fr