Food - Bee Wilson considers the sweet virtue of the parsnip
Advocates of a raw-food diet would do well to contemplate the parsnip. In its natural state, it is white and unyielding, hardly more appetising than balsa wood. Baked, though, its woody flesh turns unctuous and sweet, crisp with the caramel of the sugar in its sap. It would be hard to argue that the great gardener in the sky, if you believe in such an entity, intended the parsnip to remain uncooked. In its wild state, parsnip is inedible; even the cultivated kind need culinary assistance. Sir Kenelm Digby, in 1669, thought that raw parsnips were "the best food for tame Rabets", rendering their flesh sweet. I can believe it. But since we humans don't as a rule eat salt lick and bran mash, nor should we follow our friends the bunnies in munching raw roots.
Carrots, celeriac and beetroot are all pleasing when grated and dressed. Potatoes, turnips and parsnips, on the other hand, are not. Yet these bulky roots have proved more useful as staple foods than their colourful counterparts. The edible parsnip (pastinaca sativa) has been cultivated in western Europe since ancient times, though the Romans, oddly, didn't always distinguish it from the carrot. Before the arrival of the potato, parsnips were an important source of everyday starch, though their peculiar flavour must have become rather tedious. They have too insistent and mouth-filling a taste to act, like potato, as a backdrop. Only think how disgusting baked parsnip with caviar would be; or mashed parsnip with truffle oil; or salt and vinegar flavour parsnip crisps.
The great point of parsnip is its especial sweetness, a quality used in puddings and sweetmeats in medieval times, when sugar and honey were rare and expensive. Parsnip was the Nutrasweet of its day - a bitter and slightly unsatisfying stand-in for sugar. Would you like milk and parsnip in your tea? Its dubious popularity today could be said to be a side effect of its wintry, ambivalent sweetness. As a savoury vegetable, it has the danger of being too sugary; as a sweet, it's not quite sweet enough.
Some cooks compensate for this ambivalence by larding the roasted parsnip with honey and maple syrup, floating logs of the vegetable in a river of sticky toffee. This is unnecessary overstatement. Parsnip has "a natural sweetness that is beyond sugar", as Sir Kenelm said. So why gild it with syrup? Another strategy is smothering the parsnip in cumin, as in curried parsnip soup. But plain oil and salt are all that roasted parsnips require; or milk, butter (and maybe parmesan) if you are creaming them.
Highly savoury main dishes, such as game or salt cod, are good foils. However, when parsnips are put in a pudding, if such an idea doesn't revolt you, a little sugar and spice can't but help. You need the flavourings to underline that the parsnips are long gone from the soil and that the taint of rabbit food is thoroughly bypassed.
Parsnip pie This is inspired by an Elizabethan recipe in Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery. Have ready a 9f" baked shallow pie crust. Preheat oven to 150oC. Peel and trim four to five medium parsnips, removing the woody core. Put them in a saucepan with milk to cover, and steam until very soft. Blend, and then measure out a mug and a half of puree. Beat in two large eggs plus two large yolks, one tsp ginger, a good grating of nutmeg, 1ftsp cinnamon, 2/3 mug brown sugar, two tbsp creme fraiche. Pour into the crust and bake for 40-50 minutes. Serve cold, with hot strong coffee (not that I'm suggesting you'll need something to take the taste away).
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