Dear Readers, I’m not sure when roast parsnips became a part of our Christmas feast in the Bug Woman household, but it feels like a relatively recent thing. I’m pretty sure that we didn’t eat them when we lived in East London, so we would have been parsnip-less until about 1975. Then when we moved to the dizzy heights of Seven Kings (still in London but very slightly more Essex-y) parsnips started to crop up when we had roast beef, debuting at Christmas in about 1978. What about you, UK readers? Were parsnips ever a Christmas thing for you or was it just us?

At any rate, the parsnip is a member of the carrot family, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in flower. From the photos, it looks as if it could have a future as an ornamental, with very pretty umbels of yellow flowers which would no doubt attract clouds of hoverflies. As the gardeners amongst you already know, parsnip is a biennial like so many of the umbellifers, producing a rosette of leaves in year one, followed by the flowers in year two.

The parsnip comes originally from Eurasia, but has been in the UK since the Romans brought it (though there is some confusion between carrots and parsnips in Roman literature). Its sweetness meant it was used as a substitute for sugar before sugar beet came along, and indeed there are still lots of recipes out there for parsnip cakes. Don’t do what I did and try to make a swede (rutabaga) cake though – the one that I created had a kind of satanic sulphurous undertone that no amount of cream cheese icing could disguise.

In his column in The Guardian, Nigel Slater mentions a dish called ‘parsnips Molly Parkin’ –

“The recipe sounds somewhat unlikely, as it involves layering browned parsnips and tomatoes with brown sugar and cream, and baking it slowly till the sliced roots have softened and the cream is a rich, sweet sauce. In fact, the result is much less sweet than you would suspect. I have recently done the same with beetroot and it works a treat.”

Well, I’m not sure, I have to say. Maybe one for if you have a glut on your allotment?

This spiced orange and parsnip cake looks as if it could work, though, and it’s by no less a a personage than Nadiya Hussain, probably my favourite Great British Bake Off winner of all time.

Here at Schloss Bug Woman though parsnips are generally roasted (no pre-boiling, they’re fine as they are). While watching Masterchef The Professionals this year I was astonished to hear Monica Galetti say that you didn’t need to cut out the core, which I have been doing religiously since 1978, as my mother taught me. Turns out that Monica is correct, and the core cooks down to softness in the same time as the rest of the vegetable, plus less waste, which can only be a good thing. You live and learn, as they say. The ones below have been roasted with honey and mustard, which sounds a tad too sweet to me, but who knows?

Not everybody appreciates the ways of the parsnip, however. In France I believe that they are considered only fit for animal food, and in Italy they are fed to the pigs that are used to make parma ham. There’s a saying on the island of Guernsey (one of the Channel Islands) that ‘the little pig gets the biggest parsnip’, meaning that the youngest child is the one who is most spoilt. It also points up that it’s not just Italian pigs who get to feast on this root vegetable.

The ancient Romans considered parsnips an aphrodisiac, and the Emperor Tiberius accepted part of his tribute from Germania in ‘white carrots’.  On a more domestic note,  my Uncle Roy used to make the most migraine-inducing cloudy wine with them. Every Christmas we were given a glass of his latest brew, and I regret to say that most of it ended up in the pot that the rubber plant lived in, lest we return home in no state to eat our Christmas turkey. Strange to say, the rubber plant thrived, which just goes to show what ideal plants they are for dysfunctional households.

Interestingly though, who would have thought that the  humble parsnip could be dangerous (and not just in my Uncle Roy’s wine?) Like many umbellifers (Giant Hogweed comes to mind), the wild parsnip plant contains compounds which are phototoxic – they cause blisters when skin that has been in contact with parsnip sap is exposed to the sun (photodermatitis). They can also cause these effects in poultry and other livestock, so hopefully the Parma ham pigs don’t ever get the chance to eat the leaves or stems of the plant. Nigel Slater also mentions that old, woody specimens of parsnip were thought to induce madness, and that one time it was known as ‘the mad parsnip’.

The harmful chemicals don’t, however,  deter the caterpillars of several rather lovely moths and butterflies that feed on parsnip leaves, who instead use the toxins to deter predators.  In North America we have the parsnip swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes)…

and in Europe there’s the Common Swift moth (Korscheltellus lupulinus) and the Ghost Moth (Hepialus humuli), where there is a marked difference between the sexes. The male Ghost Moth performs an aerial display coupled with pheromones to attract a female.

And here, to finish, is a proverb and a very short poem. First up, ‘fine words butter no parsnips’ – this dates back to about 1600, and even then it had the sense that ‘talk alone won’t improve anything’. Here’s no other than Sherlock Holmes expounding on the statement:

“I tried to reason with her, but she insists she will be at her wits’ end until she knows the truth about her husband,” Lestrade sighed.

“Fine words butter no parsnips,” Sherlock replied. “While your intentions are admirable and your speech no doubt soothing, it is no substitute for the truth she seeks. That is why it is imperative for us to find that truth, and as quickly as possible.”

And here is Ogden Nash, on the parsnip:

The Parsnip

The parsnip, children, I repeat
Is simply an anaemic beet.
Some people call the parsnip edible;
Myself, I find this claim incredible

Clearly Ogden has never had Parsnips Molly Parkin.