Instructions
I was never a great fan of horror movies. It’s not that they scared me, I just never bought into the fantasy they offered. Spinning heads, brain-munching zombies, luminescent green vomit sprayed across the room. Sounds like a typical day in most commercial kitchens if you ask me. Maybe not the vomit bit, though.
Want to know something really scary? Wild parsnips. Ooooh boy, you’ll want to put the kids to bed well before you start telling this story.
You see, you’ve got no problems with the common harvested parsnip, keep on shopping at the greengrocer’s with my full support. It’s a well-known and safe species that has sustained people for millennia. By contrast, its forest dwelling cousin will be the source of a grotesque and horrible death.
While we all know that you can’t just wander through the fields picking mushrooms at will (and that includes those purple and gold-topped ones you find around Byron Bay) parsnips can be equally deadly. The merest touch, not even a bite, will transmit a toxin of such venom that you may never recover. You’ll soon be writhing under the effects of phytophotodermatitis, a condition where your skin begins to break down and dissolve when exposed to light. After a touch you’ll have less the five minutes to get indoors, and you must stay there for up to 24 hours, away from UV light. If you don’t, your skin will melt from your bones leaving a gruesome carcass suitable only for extras work in a remaking of The Exorcist.
Cool huh?
But now that I’ve put you off your Cornflakes, I should say that it’s not all rooted for the parsnip. The parsnips you buy in the supermarket are not just safe, but the best vegetable of the winter. Sweet, succulent and very versatile, they are perfectly suited to roasting, steaming and mashing.
The parsnip is a relative of the carrot, yet richer in vitamins and minerals. Toss chopped parsnips in olive oil and fresh rosemary, then roast until golden. Before the potato arrived in Europe in the 16th century, parsnips were king. So all hail Prince Parsnip, ruler of the winter kitchen.
Roasted parsnips with liquorice dressing