Hoarding Parsnips

 

                True confessions: I have a hoarding problem. Scrap wood, yarn, nice condiments, clothes I have not worn in years but loved….all very hard to clear out, although I have made a good dent in the scrap wood pile recently. But, right now, my biggest hoard is….parsnips.

                We like parsnips, so, every spring, I direct sow a nice fat ten foot row of parsnip seed, plant out the leeks to one side, the celery and some carrots and beets on the other, and consider it the Winter Soup Bed.  Parsnips thrive much better than carrots or beets. In the fall, we mound leaves around them and wait. First, we eat the last of the zucchini on the vine, which can run into November. Then it’s time for cabbages and winter greens, squashes and onions. Sometimes I think “parsnips?” but the thought of hauling them out of the wet cold soil, knowing that the tips have buried into the subsurface of clay, is daunting, so I wait.  Another day, I assure myself. I do pull some early on sunny winter afternoons, but not many.

                And then we hit late March. It’s early leaf season…all of the cabbages are gone, the few winter squash are no longer sweet, the late potatoes have sprouted and wrinkled, and the onions and garlic are growing a bit soft in the middle. No asparagus yet. Just raabs and leaves at the market. Maybe some radishes but radishes are not a meal. It feels a bit grim.  I walk out to the  Winter Soup bed. There are leeks, looking a little battered by the ice storm in January, but still green. And the parsnips are just beginning to grow little tufts of greens on their heads, so I can see where they all are. I plunge my hands—then the pitchfork—deep into the soil, being careful of the irrigation hose nearby.  I tug. One booted foot in the bed, two hands deep into the slowly warming ground. Tug. Twist. Tug. And it comes loose. A Parsnip.  Big enough for dinner, just one. It’s a glorious moment.

                I see the five foot long line of parsnips before me…soon, I’ll be rummaging through the British cookbooks in the library, looking for the parsnip cake recipe.  And making parsnip soup. And roast parsnips. And parsnips sautéed in butter. And vowing to NOT hoard the parsnips for next year.  We’ll see.