FARSNIP 229 



In the Middle Ages it was considered the correct adjunct 

 to the salt fish of the days of abstinence, a combination 

 that we believe still holds, as a curious survival, in some 

 parts of the country, haddock and parsnips being as 

 much in accordance with the fitness of things as lamb 

 and mint sauce or any other blend sanctioned by con- 

 servatism and immemorial usage. A kind of beer is made 

 by mashing up the roots with hops and then proceeding 

 to fermentation, and a more aristocratic beverage known 

 as parsnip wine is also in repute in some rural districts. 

 Gerard quaintly tells us that " there is a good and pleasant 

 food or bread made of the roots of Parsneps, as my friend 

 Mr. Plat hath set forth in his booke of experiments, 

 which I have made no triall of, nor meane to do." 



Dioscorides, who as an authority is at least venerable 

 if not reliable, affirms that deer are preserved from the 

 attacks of serpents by sedulously eating wild parsnips, 

 and thus becoming poison-proof ; whereupon mankind, 

 by observance of this, equally protect themselves from 

 the venom of serpents and scorpions by drinking wine 

 in which the aromatic seeds of parsnips have been steeped. 

 Bacon, in Sylva Sylvarum, published in the year 1629, 

 reports as a curious fact that " roots, such as Garrets and 

 Parsnips, are more Sweet and Lushious in Infectious Yeeres 

 than in other Yeeres." He had observed, too, that " in the 

 Plague of the last Yeere there were seene in divers Ditches 

 and low Grounds about London many Toads that had Tailes 

 two or three Inches long at the least : Whereas Toads 

 (vsually) have no Tailes at all. Which argueth a great 

 Disposition to Putrefaction in the Soile and Aire," ^ and 

 ■ His book is a most interesting one ; on the surface amusing, yet pathetic 



