The Twelve Ingredients of a Christmas Dinner - Parsnips

The Twelve Ingredients of a Christmas Dinner - Parsnips

The parsnip, that thing that looks like an anaemic carrot, is known as Pastinca sativa and is a relative to the carrot. It was hard to distinguish the difference between the carrot and the parsnip until 17th century when the Dutch bred the orange colour to highlight the independence of the Netherlands.

It was thought that the name could have been an amalgamation of the names "parsley" and "turnip" - the parsnip is related to parsley. But it is more commonly thought that the name comes the Middle English pasnepe (from the Latin pastinum which means "a kind of fork") (source).

The parsnip grows best in sandy loam conditions that have low soil temperatures and the English took it to the USA. The parsnip, and the carrot, are of Eurasian origin with the latter being from Iran and Afghanistan. I do hope that the Armed Forces stationed in Afghanistan will enjoy carrots and parsnips for their Christmas meal. I have recently heard that a friend of mien, serving in the Royal Air Force, has had parsnips out in Camp Bastion.

In the commercial and domestic harvesting, care should be taken when dealing with the leaves and the shoots, as they may contain furanocoumarin - this is a photosensitive chemical that can lead to phytophotodermatitis. This chemical is probably more prevalent in the wild parsnip. All this is, is the chemical has reacted to the ultraviolet light to form a burn that may blister for 24 to 48 hours before leaving dark spots that may look like freckles. The best solution is to wear long protective gloves when harvesting or if the sap gets on your skin is to wash it off with cold water and stay indoors, as the heat and light of outdoors will only increase the potential for blistering (more information can be found here http://multifariousraymonds.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/parsnip-anyone)

Hugh Fearnely Whittingstall, in his Guardian column (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/dec/21/parsnip-recipes-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall) for the 21st of December 2012, that "parsnip's intense sweetness and pungency can make it quite an overpowering mouthful" and one if his suggestions is to add a small bit to stocks. The roasted option helps to intensify the natural sugars to produce a caramelised effect. The tapering of the roast parsnip gives three different textures to the diner; the crisp end, the golden chewy centre part and the fluffy and soft thicker end. In his article, Hugh F-W suggests adding herbs and spices instead of honey as the vegetable has enough of its own and the honey may add to the burning of it within the oven. He provides three recipes for curried, purée and rösti.

Apologies for the lack of clickable hyperlinks, these will be restored in a later edit.