What vegetable might be called a Worchester?

Question

When I was young, my parents would put a vegetable in our stir fry that they called a Worchester. I recently found out that this doesn't actually exist so I've been trying to determine what they were feeding me. My girlfriend thinks they might have been a variety of radish.

I unfortunately don't remember the raw vegetable, by when stir fried it was a white disc about the size of a quarter. It had a very uniform size and color, there was no core like you would see in a parsnip. They were a little crunchy, like a raw apple. The taste was quite unique, I can't compare it to anything, but it was a very mild flavour.

Any ideas what they were?

Answer 1

Sounds like sliced water chestnuts to me, especially with the name similarity.

Answer 2

Intriguing =)

Although it probably is water chestnut, I will still go ahead and try this one ;-)
(can not hurt to have a bit of a choice here, right)

My first thought from the description was salsify ( could refer to black salsify Scorzonera hispanica or to purple salsify Tragopogon porrifolius ).

I mostly know the black one, and it has a quite unique but mild flavor, and it is usually quite evenly thick (like a quarter, could be right).

... and I fond this article where it says:

Traditionally it is called “oyster plant”, ...

which sounds similar to "worcester" (wuus-tər see here).

Even though the texture is usually not so crunchy and it is not normally found in stirfries, it seems like an almost convincing candidate to me =)
Unless you did't mean to pronounce it like Worcester ... then I would go with water chestnut too ;-)

Answer 3

Maybe they used radish, they are round and crunch. Some are the size of a quarter and some smaller. Usually eaten raw, but I suppose they can be used in stir fries.