SC - Carrots and Turnips-Period?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 20:57:17 EDT
> From: WyteRayven at aol.com
> Subject: SC - Carrots and Turnips-Period?
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> My family has a very simple recipe that has been handed down from sometime 
> before my Great-grandmother. She was born in England, and I am curious if 
> there are period recipes similar to this. I will be checking the Florilegium, 
> but I thought that I would send out a note as well.
> 
> The recipe really has no measurements. Everything is done to taste. It is 
> simply peel  boil some carrots, and some turnips (a little less turnips than 
> carrots) and mash them together with lots of butter and salt and pepper.
> 
> I used to hate it as a kid, but I love it now, though we tend to only have it 
> during holidays.
> 
> I think that both carrots and turnips are  period, but I don't know if the 
> dish might be or not.

I don't know if the dish as you describe it is period, but --

Kenelm Digby (1669 C.E.) has a recipe for parsnips cooked this way. He
includes, IIRC, a bit of the cooking water so that when the butter melts
it remains emulsified, the whole forming a rather creamy puree...I
occasionally refer to this dish as parsnips Alfredo ;  ), but there's no
cheese. But you know... Hmmm....

Carrots are referred to rather infrequently in the known medieval
European recipe corpus, but they did exist, if a bit closer to a parsnip
than a modern carrot.

As for turnips, they appear somewhat more frequently. These would be the
real purple-and-white turnips, rather than the rutabaga or Swede, which
is sometimes referred to as a turnip.

I have a diner in my neighborhood that invariably makes a mashed mixture
of carrots and parsnips in the colder months, and the smart money is on
it rather than the overcooked broccoli, the mysteriously grey peas and
carrots, and the leathery corn.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com