Let’s hear it for parsnips
Parsnips have gotten a bad rap. Although I’m not sure why they are so often either detested or ignored, I’ve got some ideas.
For starters, they look like wan and bleached-out versions of their cousin the carrot. But I think the real reason is their unfortunate name, which makes them sound like the dread turnip (which is actually fairly good too, if cooked correctly). But parsnips are sweeter and tastier than either, although you rarely see them on a restaurant menu and only tend to find them on the home dinner table at holiday time, if then.
If you hate parsnips, you are hardly alone, although I think you are wrong, wrong, wrong. I used to think I hated them, too, until I discovered I’d not ever tasted one. I also don’t like them mashed, the easiest and most common way to make them, as well as the most insipid.
Parsnips just plain sound nasty. But I had some the other day and they were marvelous, with a deep rich flavor that reminded me how very much I like them, even though I tend to forget they exist. They were in a pot roast with carrots, onions, and potatoes. They’re good roasted alone as well, or sauteed in oil or butter, and they can be the secret ingredient to give a special mysterious mild sweetness to a soup stock.
The parsnip used to be more ubiquitous before the potato came to Europe from the Western Hemisphere and supplanted it. Parsnips were relied on because they can be grown in cold climates—in fact, parsnips need some frost to flourish—and they have more nutrients than carrots. A parsnip can be eaten raw, although no one ever does. I’ve never even tried, but my guess is that it would be a tough and fibrous undertaking.
But did you know the Romans considered parsnips an aphrodisiac? Maybe if we spread the word around they’d suddenly become a lot more popular.
I, too, enjoy parsnips on those rare occasions when I remember that there’s any such thing. I grew up without ever setting eyes on one, but was taught how good they are by my mother-in-law, a Yankee born and raised on a cold New England farm.
Whew. It’s such a relief to be back on the same favorite-foods page as you are, Neo, after that awful debacle with the baked Lays and Triscuits!
10 parsnips= 1 turnip, says this faint voice from the South.
Long Live Parsnips! I make a beef stew with parsnips, turnips, carrots and potatoes (sometimes I just double up on the parsnips and skip the taters) that is actually great with most any red meat, like venison. Then there is parsnip soup…
I like parsnips too, but like Tom, I prefer turnips. And I love rutabagas. 10 turnips=1 rutabaga. Or maybe 3 turnips=1 rutabaga. That’s more reasonable.
Try mashing rutabagas and carrots together with grated ginger and garlic, butter and a little salt!
I adore parsnips! We have them every Fri night with the roast chicken (along with carrots, onions, fennel, and garlic). But I only discovered them about a year ago while watching a cooking show. I have an excuse, though (born and bred southerner). As a yankee, neo, I would have thought you had them often all your life.
But I cannot ABIDE rutabagas! Ugh…
All the ceasers loved parsnip. Lucky for you all I’m too lazy to think of a good salad pun.
Typical Wikipedia Revisionism. Real erotica professionals will tell you that the Romans considered parsnips a sex toy. This is alluded to at La Wik as:
“When the Roman Empire expanded north through Europe, the Romans brought the parsnip with them. They found that the parsnip grew bigger the farther north they went.”
This propensity of parsnips is the prime mover for Roman expansionism into Northern Europe.
> Parsnips have gotten a bad rap.
Parsnips are vile, odious, repulsive, and disgusting in the extreme.
The idea of touching one makes me cringe. The idea of eating one — boiled, sauteed, baked, stewed, steamed, grilled, fried, or poached makes me want to gag. I’m quite sure if I ate one I would be overcome by the need to projectile vomit it from my person.
If there is a vegetable which should be eradicated from the face of the earth, to be driven to extinction, it is the filthy parsnip. No one should ever have to encounter these reprehensible examples of the lowest denizens of the vegetable kingdom under even the most wretched of circumstances. Child molesters, rapists, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, all should never, ever have had to experience parsnips, before or after their deaths.
There is simply no excuse for parsnips.
That said:
What the hell is a parsnip?
:oD
Indeed, the rough usage of parsnips as sex toys gave rise to the ancient Roman proverb, “is operor non butter ullus parsnips.” or “It don’t butter no parsnips.”
Haven’t had them in years. My Grandpa used to grow them. He would burry them for a while in some leaves/ mulch out in the garden in the winter. Made them much sweeter.
Roasted is best.
It’s pronounced “pahsnips.” Y’ have ’em with Sundy dinnah.
Its not their name, its their looks. Looks like the skin on a pot bellied pig or ET’s…ummm…arm.
And turnip greens would be the perfect food if it weren’t for collard greens!
Nice idea, mizpants. I’ll try your swedes + carrots !
I’ll see your 3 and raise you 7!
In the days when people did more for themselves, grew their own vegetables, mostly cooked at home and made their own wines, parsnip wine was made every year, and a very good wine it is too, I have made it and can vouch for it. I can give you the recipe if you want.
As a vegetable this is what Nichols Culpepper had to say about it in 1653 in his “English Physician and Complete Herbal”
“The garden parsnip is under Venus; it nourisheth much, and is very good and wholesome, but a little windy, whereby it is thought to procure bodily lust – the wild being better than the garden shows Dame Nature to be the best physician.”
I’m not sure i’ve ever had a parsnip. But you mention turnips. I like a couple of bites of the bulb raw, then it gets old. As for the turnip greens- they are pretty good, but they stink when cooking.
I believe that you can cook parsnips with any carrot recipe, and I just saw a recipe for a puree of carrot and parsnip.that was supposed to be fabulous. My mother always parboiled peeled parsnips, then dipped them in breadcrumbs and sauteed them lightly in a little butter.
We forget that there was a time when we didn’t have fresh vegetables from all over the world flown in, when root vegetables were far more important, and the reason why people built root cellars. Books written about that period sometimes mention how starved people were for greens -any greens– in the spring.
I remember a novel by MacKinley Kantor that was set in the upper Midwest somewhere, and through a long hard winter the pioneers were stuck with only a large quantity of pumpkins for food. They ate pumpkins for every meal, day after day. That really stuck in my mind, and I’ve looked on pumpkins with a jaundiced eye ever since –except for Halloween, of course. The book was possibly “Spirit Lake”.
Rutabagas are known as Swedish turnips, introduced from Sweden, and also called Swedes, but why are turnips called neeps?
I like them a lot… put them in stew. people like my stew alot, and its just that i put lots of good stuff in they are no longer familiar with… nothing fancy at all…
though since its my families type style and recipes, i cant make less than 12 quarts at a time or more. i dont know if this is common among immigrants who used to have large families where meals could get pretty big (specially if you were farmer folk)
Whoa! Who would think an article praising parsnips would have me crying copious tears this morning? As I read, I thought, I used to like parsnips, why haven’t I eaten any since 1958? That brought the memories back.
My Dad (my Daddy back then) loved parsnips sautéed in real butter and served as part of his big “start the day off right” breakfasts he would get up and prepare for me when I was a child. On the morning of August 16, 1958, he was in the kitchen frying up the parsnips with eggs and we were laughing and carrying on and having a great time. My Dad loved the grand gestures and I remember him putting a towel over his arm and then resting my plate on it and bringing it to the table with a big flourish with the words “for the Princess” as he presented my breakfast to me at the table. I, of course, was giggling in the way little girls do and loving being my father’s special Princess. Thirty minutes later he was dead, just keeled over and died right in front of me.
I’ve never had parsnips since, although until this post I had never given a thought to them or why I never ate them again. That was 52 years ago and I think it is time to add parsnips back into the family menu fare.
Elephant’s Child — see the link below on the distinctions, if any, among neeps, swedes, turnips, and rutabagas — it won’t help, but it’s funny!
http://tinyurl.com/yh6ca7c
Strange, but the only way I’ve tried parsnips was sliced thinly and skillet fried in a little butter, then added some shredded onions at the last moment. Excellent! Also, skillet fried sweet potatoes are pretty tasty too.
Sara (Pal2Pal): what a sad and touching story. Your father sounds like a wonderful man, although you had him with you such a short time. No wonder parsnips would remind you of that day.
I’ve never knowingly eaten a parsnip. I’m a fan of the turnip, though I haven’t eaten turnips since I was a kid. However, mentioning turnips in your story triggered a childhood memory that I haven’t recalled in about 30 years. I feel compelled to share it.
In the late 1970s/early ’80s, an old man who lived on a farm just outside of the small town I grew up in refused to embrace modernity. He had to be pushing 80, but his horse and wagon were his only mode on transportation. He wasn’t Amish — his children and grandchildren owned cars, lived nearby, and looked after him. But the old man was stubborn and just refused to change.
Anyway, as the vegetables in his outisized garden on his farm ripened, he would load them into his wagon, hook the horses up, and head for town. He’d sit at the same street corner until he sold out. Then he’d clean up after the horses and do it all over again the next day.
He was gregarious and he liked to tell stories to anybody who would listen. We mostly bought melons, tomatos, and sweet corn from him. But sometimes turnips. Once when we stopped by to buy some turnips from him, he asked me, “do you know why my turnips are so good?”. Of course, I replied I did not. Without missing a beat, he said the trick is:
I plant ’em on the 4th of July
whether its wet or dry
And I harvest on the 1st of October
whether I’m drunk or sober.
I have no idea if that’a a common lyric or if he made it up on the fly. But I’ve always remembered it.
I bet you had no idea mentioning turnips could trigger a fond childhood memory in someone.
Sorry, Neo, but in the old Carl Barks Donald Duck stories Huey, Dewey, and Louiie were always facing unhappily the problem of being served parsnips and in solidarity to them I vowed never to let one pass my lips.
I’ve had parsnips raw once. They’d been shredded like carrots (although the consistency was different) andthey were on a tossed salad. I didn’t know what they were and I’d never had parsnips before so I had to ask what they were. They had an interesting flavor. Not bad at all. But I prefer turnips, especially mashed turnips.
I have never had parsnips- at least I don’t remember it. I recommend rutabagas mashed with potatoes- after cooking both, of course.
I grew parsnips for the first time last year. The baby ones are good roasted with a little olive oil and seasoning. The grown-up ones are delicious when mashed with carrots, butter and salt. Yum.
Parsnips are great. Make them in beef stew with carrots, onions, mushrooms. They are best roasted (become sweeter than when boiled). They are also good slivered and baked with olive oil and garlic drizzled over them at the last minute. Or else baked with carrots and drizzled with a very little brown sugar and butter.
Sara, Thank you for that touching story.
Parsnips are part of our local farm share we get every week here in the upper left (political and geographical) corner of the nation. Roasted with olive oil and garlic, or in bean soups are my favorites. They are surprisingly sweet.
I never heard of parsnips when I was a kid, but my mom used to plant parsley (which turns out to be a relative of parsnips). When the plants were mature she would dig up the long, thick roots and dry them. She always put a dried parsley root in each batch of soup she made, for flavoring, and it really was good.
Sara — such a touching and sweet story.
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten (perhaps not even seen) a parsnip. Turnips, I grew up on. The greens are best when served with the root, I think.
I know I’ve at least seen rutabagas, but can’t remember if I’ve ever eaten one.
Turnip greens are best, collard greens are OK, but mustard greens should be eaten only when there’s nothing else.
Mrs Whatsit: Can you translate that article into German for me? I need a buying guide for my next supermarket trip. This illustrates why scientist rely on genus and species names.
Tarragon Rose: Parsley roots are used in Germany in the same way. I wouldn’t call them popular, but you do see them mentioned in recipes for soups and stews. Now I’ll have to try them.
The recession and the cold winter are bringing out the back to basics in us. I just did a lentil soup last night using a little pack of mixed vegies I had chopped and frozen a few weeks ago. It worked fine and was really fast. I think I will continue to do this for soup bases. It’s a good way to take advantage of that last carrot and celery stalk, and now maybe parsley root. Plus, it enables downsizing of recipes.
MMMM – parsnips – cooked with a little broth and a little butter, until they are cooked lightly, and then browned in the butter, served with pepper. Delish.
And equal parts carrots and turnips boiled together with butter and ground pepper until tender enough to mash? pure bliss, people, pure bliss.
I like parsnips, but the ones I find tend to be woody and hard to peel… so they’re a hassle to cook. Carrots have the advantage of being available as baby carrots. So easy!
Rutabagas are great! It’s a shame they kind of smell badly while they’re cooking, because they really are quite sweet.
Where’s the love for the lonely Brussels sprout?
/The National Association For The Advancement of Brussels Sprouts
I had no idea that there were so many parsnip deprived.
I mean, how on earth could you possibly make a decent chicken soup without parsnips.
2-3 parsnips
6 carrots
3 stalks celery
1 large onion cut in half
chicken, chicken stock and water
(matzah balls optional)
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Parsnips in a pot roast are absolute heaven! Try it if you’ve never had them… Sara (Pal2Pal) thanks for sharing your story. I hope having them again brings back wonderful memories for you.
Mrs Whatzit, Thank you. The ‘explanation’ didn’t help a bit, but was enjoyable. I have always regarded rutabagas as vile, disgusting and nasty. Turnips, mashed, are passable, but parsnips are fully acceptable. I cannot warm up to brussels sprouts but love cabbage.
Try fresh cabbage, chopped into 1/2″ squares, sauteed quickly in butter, add a little sour cream and a good dose of black pepper.
Then there’s parsnip wine. Greatly favored in England, where the old guys vie for the best nip. Google away….
I make this for Thanksgiving. I choose a couple or three small parsnips and a couple of medium carrots. Peel, then cut into 2″ chunks and cut those into ‘julienne’ or matchstick strips about 1/3″. Put these in a saucepan w/a cover, add half a cup of water and cook over medium heat for 3 or 4 minutes until the water is gone. Now add a couple of tablespoons of butter, and swirl the veggies around, then lower the heat. When the butter has all melted and the veggies have sweated til good and tender, plate them and add a quarter cup or so of freshly grated parmesan. A little salt and pepper, dash of nutmeg. Let this sit for 2 minutes or so while the cheese melts, and give ’em a try. If you still don’t like parsnips after this, there’s no hope for you. Pass ’em over to me.
Another tack, similar to my recipe above:
http://www.thegoodmoodfoodblog.com/2008/11/perfect-parsnips.html