Blog Birthday!
Thank you for coming here over the past year and for sharing your stories with me, it has been an enjoyable period and I have ‘cyber met’ a lot of nice people here. I have been astounded by the kindness of those who follow me and surprised that anyone even wants to read about the trivia I write about. I hope it continues for a long time in the future and I look forward to maybe meeting you in real life one day!
Some of my favourite posts from the early days:
French Kitchens
Lettre Recommandée
Jardinage Jeudi
The sun has come back, hooray! I’ve become a bit bored of the garden over the last week, probably due to the bad weather, but now the sun is back I’m looking at it with renewed interest, seeing what I can plant and what needs tidying up.
I will be sowing my parsnip seeds soon (I think I’m a bit late but nevermind, it’s worth a try) as I find it hard to find parsnips here and Hubby and I love nothing more than roasted parsnips in winter.
The seeds will be going in a large container which I grew runner beans in last year, but have failed to produce even a green shoot this year. I think it will be strange to grow a root vegetable in a container and I’m not even sure that it will work, but I’m going to fill it with soil right up to the top and we will see!
I was once lucky to find parsnips in our local vegetable store (called Marche Provencale for some strange reason – we are not in Provence!) and stood in a queue one Sunday morning for more than 30 minutes waiting to pay for them (there were a lot of people shopping and the till was also the cheese counter).
It was an interesting experience as the Mamie in front of me and the younger fashionista behind me were both intrigued by these strange looking, carrotish vegetables in my panier. They asked me all about them and I explained how I cooked them and gave them recipes (okay, told them how to roast them!). They both ended up leaving with parsnips!
For some reason parsnips are pretty much unknown in France, a lot of people will look at them and won’t know what they are, yet alone what they’re called. For a country that has so much diversity in it’s food and such lovely markets where one can purchase fresh produce, it seems strange that this lowly vegetable is so widely unknown.
I’m really hoping my parsnips grow and that I’ll have a good crop this winter so that I can feed my friends and family lots of yummy parsnips!
My goodness, you are courageous! We only have a couple of measy tomato plants, but vegetables are way too much trouble.
Parsnips are known in France, especially during and after WWII when there was nothing else to eat. They are called “panais”. You’ll see them about now that old-time veggies are in style.
Probably more mad than courageous! I will take a picture of my garden and post it on here at some point and you will understand why…
So, parsnips have been around then? Hopefully they’ll come back into fashion in Lyon as well, I’m often met with a blank look when I ask for panais!
Do you have any tomatoes on your tomato plants yet? We have a few, but teeny tiny and no where near ready to be eaten yet… Just wondering if it’s normal!
Parsnip is muche loved all over Romania. No one would make soup without it – ( the trio carots+parsely root +parsnip) is the core of any Romanian traditional soup. It is widely used here to give flavour and aroma to soup but I have never tried it roasted or fried.
Hopefully it will become as popular here! I will have to remember that combination for soup this coming winter, its sounds delicious!
I’ve not tried fried parsnips, but roasted parsnips (cut length wise) are lovely. They are so sweet and get just crispy enough.
Heureuse anniversaire, heureuse anniversaire, heureuse anniver-sayer, heureuse anniversaire.
From the Parsnip Lover.
merci, merci, merci fellow Parsnip fan
Happy Blog-iversary!
We can get parsnips here in Intermarche and Carrouf now, and suedes. This has been the case for a couple of years now and I hope it continues!
I love roasted parsnips too.
Write to your local shop and ask them to stock them.
Thank you!
Suedes and those white navet things (don’t know what they’re called in English!) are easy to find here but parsnips are a bit of a mission.
My local veg shop stocked them for a while this winter which was good but at my local Carrouf I just get blank looks whenever I ask if they have them. You’re right, I will send them a letter (and maybe a photo) this autumn…
Alas, no tomatoes, just tiny plants.
Rolled oats are just called “flacons d’avoine” as far as I know. The best ones I’ve found are in the magasins biologiques.
I don’t think the regular ‘Floçons d’avoine’ are rolled. The ones you need are the ‘Baby’ ones (they are called Floçons d’avoine baby’ in our Bio shop). They are the ones I use for making porridge, flapjacks etc
I’m sure the t’s will come soon, especially now the weather is improving. At least I do hope so…
Thanks Penny & Dedene for the rolled oats translations, I had no idea what these were in English yet alone french! Dedene, I will be trying out your cookie recipe in a few weeks and will be taking them to a friends house. A good excuse to cook and try them and then not have to eat them all!
Now then, parsnips. One of THE big successes in my potager last year – they were simply enormous (I have some photos somewhere). People say they are hard to germinate but I didn’t have a problem sowing them directly last year and this year’s seeds have also taken well. They can take a while to come through, so be patient.
Navets are turnips. They were one of THE big failures for me last year – the dreaded flea beetle chomped its way through my entire crop. I may try again this year, but cover the sowings with fleece to protect them.
Enormous parsnips sound like my idea of veggie patch heaven! What was the soil you grew them in like? I hope I have as muck luck as you Penny! I’ve now decided to plant two lots: 1 at home in pots and the other in a veggie patch which I’m making at my Beaux-Parents so fingers crossed I will have success somewhere…
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a turnip! When is the latest you would be planting?
We’ve got lots of black flies (small ones) in the garen at the moment, they’re driving me mad!
The Navet de Nancy which are the white and pink ones should be sown anytime from now through to August for harvest October/November/December. They are ever so easy, but watch out for the flea beetle which is a tiny little black jumping thing that will munch holes in the leaves as they grow and eventually destroy the crop
The soil here is on the heavy side but I dig in plenty of organic matter, compost and rotted leaves in to lighten it. The parsnips seem to thrive with very little attention.
The insect population down here also seems to have multiplied over the past week. I am dreading the arrival of the horsefly in the coming weeks…. horrible horrible things to which I react very badly!
Happy belated BLOGI-VERSARY
)
I gew parsnips in pots last year, but as Penny says they are hard to germinate. We had enough for just one meal
(
After watering them all the summer when water here was at a premium – they ended up expensive parsnips.
Radishes grow well in pots and are ready to serve in weeks! Anyone tried these?
Good luck with ‘Piglets Parsnips’
Obrigade?
mmmm, I might have a go at radishes too! Is it too late to plant? I’n in Provence at the moment so I may go to a pottery shop later to get some new pots as I’ve run out (if they’re open, it is Sunday of course!).
With all the rain we get in Lyon I think I may be okay on the watering side
Storms forecast all next week!
Parsnips used to be available on the market when I was first in France, and were put into pot au feu..I don’t know if that was a regional thing.
Then they disappeared only to reappear in the supermarkets last year…bought by Brits!
As to growing them, the seed has to be fresh for good results and even then they seem to take ages to pop up.
Worth it though.
I like to mash them with egg and a little flour and a mild curry flavouring to make savoury patties.
I’ve been able to buy them once or twice here recently but eight or nine years ago they were impossible to find (I can remember trying to find some for my Mum and Dad when they came over).
Thanks for the suggestion for savoury patties, I will keep this in mind!
Happy belated Blogiversary, Piglet!! I am so glad your blog was born and that you have been so wonderful about writing for it.
About this, “it seems strange that this lowly vegetable is so widely unknown.”
I have heard and read that the parsnip was a food that was very widely used up until WWII or just after. I heard that parsnips were so widespread in use that people actually got sick of eating them, and so they grew out of favor, virtually disappearing for a few decades post-war.
Ahhh, yes, it was at good old David Lebovitz’s site where I read this — I thought so: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2010/01/roasted_root_vegetable_wheat_ber.html
Also, my good friend Janet (who does not read his blog at all), had said something to me about this, too. So I think this could be why they have only recently been coming back into shops.
I love roasted parsnips. I hope you have great success with the parsnips!
Vive le panais!
Thanks for the blogday wishes Karin
and a HUGE thanks for the link, that looks a yummy scrummy recipe! Now I have to hope the blasted things grow (but if not I have a stock in my freezer from ones I bought last winter – I wonder if they’ll last that long?).
(Oooh, feel free to edit my comment so that link is not so long! I should have hand-coded the link to some words, but I was being lazy. Sorry!)
I don’t know how to ! Never mind, its a good looking link!