42 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



They were served at the Roman tables with 

 the pith or string taken out after being boiled, 

 when a sauce was made for this dish with 

 mead or honey wine. The ancients attribute 

 wonderful qualities to this root, and it was 

 much esteemed by the worshippers of the 

 spouse of Vulcan. 



Ancient authors inform us, that if we rub 

 our teeth with parsnips, after they have been 

 picked, it will cure their aching. Parsnips 

 were eaten both boiled and raw. The seed 

 of the garden parsnip, as well as that of the 

 wild, was much used in medicine by the 

 ancients. Dioches, Cleophantus, Philistio, 

 and Orpheus, as well as Pliny, all wrote on 

 the aphrodisiac quality of the parsnip. 



Gerard says, " The herbaristes of our time 

 doe call the garden parsnip Pastinaca, and 

 therefore we have surnamed it Latifolia, or 

 broad-leaved, that it may differ from the 

 other garden parsnip, with narrow leaves, 

 which is truly and properly called Staphy- 

 limis, that is, the garden carrote." Parsnips 

 were also called Mypes in the time of this 

 author, who adds, " that parsnips are more 

 nourishing than carrots or turnips. 



Parsnips contain a very considerable por- 

 tion of sugar. In Thuringia, the country 



