HISTORY AND COOKERY 81 



a minestra, one may take three sliced young turnips, a 

 small sliced carrot, and a small sliced onion, a sliced stick 

 of celery, or two sliced tomatoes, and fry them gently 

 for five minutes in oil. Throw these fried vegetables, 

 with quarter of a pound of rice, into three pints of 

 good stock which is simmering, flavour with pepper 

 and salt, and boil for one and a half hours. Serve with 

 grated cheese (Parmesan or preferably dried Cheddar 

 or Cheshire). Instead of the turnips, sliced cabbage 

 may be employed, but this latter should not be fried, nor 

 should it be added to the stock until forty minutes before 

 the minestra is to be served. 



Parsnips 



Parsnips have long been grown and valued, Pliny 

 mentioning them as among the regular contents of 

 Roman gardens. They seem to have been used at 

 different times for the most curious ends — the making 

 of bread and the making of a wine, said by an en- 

 thusiast to rival Malmsey and Canary. 



Parsnips are included in the list of vegetables, culti- 

 vated by the monks of St Gall in the ninth century, but 

 there is no record of their cultivation in England until 

 many centuries later, although the parsnip is a native 

 plant. The ancients seem merely to have transplanted 

 the wild parsnip into their gardens, and to have made 

 no serious attempt by selection to find a variety free 

 from the extreme pungency which marks the flavour 

 of the wild plant. Worlidge speaks of the parsnip as 

 " an excellent sweet root, and very pleasing to some 

 people." 



Parsnips, like beetroot, must not be cut before being 

 cooked, or they will lose half their value. To boil 

 them, having first scrubbed them with cold water, place 

 them in a pan containing a minimum of boiling water. 



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