There is a tiny, quiet, stealthy revolution taking place
in France’s markets. At first you wouldn’t really notice it – after all, there
is nothing remarkable about the thing itself. You see it everywhere in England,
you’re used to it being there in winter, it’s normal.
But to the Frenchwoman, it’s bizarre, alien, even dangerous.
It threatens kitchen life as she knows it.
It is the appearance of that most subversive of vegetables,
the parsnip.
If you were to look turnip
up in the Larousse Gastronomique, you will find several recipes. Let’s
face it, there would have to be – the turnip, alone and undressed, tastes of
stale water.
Look up parsnip,
and you will get a few paragraphs, and the conclusion that the English eat it
roasted with their rosbif. End of
story.
When we first came over, it was impossible to get
parsnips anywhere. I found out why when I bought a magazine devoted to Medieval
life, and found it there under Foods of the Past. The parsnip was eaten in the
Middle Ages when everything was boiled into submission and therefore safe to
eat. It made a brief resurgence in the 19th Century, but it didn’t
catch on.
The ex-pat English bemoan the loss of many things –
bacon, Marmite, marmalade – but if you mention the golden-skinned, pointy
vegetable, they will suddenly remember it, and miss it terribly.
So little by little, supermarkets began to stock them – English
grown, of course. No Frenchman worth his salt would give turnip land over to
parsnip production. The word went round – ‘you can get them in Leclerc’, ‘SuperU
have a few’ – and off we went to buy them whilst stocks lasted.
But recently they have begun to appear on the market
stalls: never in huge numbers, and frequently grown well past the point where you
can actually cut through the things with anything less than a chainsaw. The
market is quintessentially French – it’s where the housewife of note and
standing goes to make her savvy purchases from her chosen stallholders. She
will squeeze the radis noirs, glare at the endives, turn her nose up at the chicory;
it’s her right to flex her marketing muscles to her own satisfaction.
And there, amidst all the usual produce, is the parsnip.
And next to the parsnip is an Englishwoman (or man), cooing and sighing and dreaming
of soup, mash, puree with cream and a sprinkling of paprika, chunks in beefy
stews. The Frenchwoman will sidle away, sensing madness.
I was once asked by a French lady, in the middle of a
hypermarket, what to do with a parsnip. Several others stopped to hover, whilst
pretending not to listen. It’s food, therefore it’s of interest: but it’s
foreign food, therefore it is viewed with suspicion.
But it’s there, not just on the stalls of the organic
growers, or the sustainable farming types, who could be excused on the grounds
of incipient hippiedom; it’s crept onto the ordinary veggie stalls too.
This is, of course, delightful for us. But there will be
revenge to be extracted somehow, and I fear that you are going to suffer for
our victory. English supermarket shelves will groan under the weight of radis noir, chicory, and endive: but
far, far worse – there will be an attempted Turnip Takeover.
Run for your gastronomic lives – run to France: we’ve got
the parsnips!
© lms 2012
Well I never! In France too! Here in Tenerife we've converted quite a few locals to the delicacy. In fact, it's too long a story for a mere comment so I'll post on my own blog.
ReplyDeleteJust read the above comment and it looks wrong! What I should have said that I was so impressed by and interested in your blog that I made Him Indoors read it too. So thanks!
ReplyDeleteI adore parsnips! Mashed, souped, diced, roasted, raw even, so clearly I have no french blood in MY veins. You should have a go at selling this delightful blog subject to a Sunday Newspaper, or the Telegraph on saturday, cos imo it's a Blog Worth Flogging!
ReplyDelete