Vintage Destinations - Royal Winter Fair 2003

World’s Largest Parsnip
A Guinness World Record at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair

November 7, 2003
Copyright Michael Vaughan, 2003

It is a scary thing - hairy, big and ugly. Show this giant parsnip to anyone and they are likely to run away and swear off vegetables for life. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and to Norman Craven of Cannington, Ontario this new world record giant parsnip is a wonderful thing. First, it is bound for the Guinness Book of World Records. Weighing in at 8 lb 6 oz, it demolished the previous record holder (a puny 5 lb 13 oz) and also was the big winner at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair which runs November 7-16.

Norman Craven and his World Record Parsnip

Craven who works at the Home Depot has been raising these giant vegetables in his backyard since 1989. “It’s my hobby.” He exclaims. “This parsnip was raised on a patch 3 feet by 3 feet and it took about an hour a day of TLC from the time I moved it into the garden until harvested just this week.”

Craven is no stranger to monster vegetables. He created Guinness world records with his giant pumpkin in 1993 (836 lb.) and rutabagas in 1995 (56.3 lb.) and 1996 (62.2 lb.). Having just received his fourth award, he is aiming at challenging the worlds largest marrow (135 lb.) at next years’s competition. You can catch Cravens parsnip and a variety of award-winning vegetables (including the 1168 lb pumpkin) at the Fair until November 16 at Toronto's Exhibition Place.

For more information on the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair go to www.royalfair.org

PARSNIP PRIMER
Credit: Alan Davidson The Oxford Companion to Food

PARSNIP Pastinaca sativa, an umbelliferous plant which grows wild in Europe and W. Asia and has been cultivated to produce an edible root. (The root of the wild parsnip is small, woody, and inedible, but sweet and with a distinct parsnip aroma; so it could originally have been used as a flavouring. Cultivation for this purpose would have improved its size and led to edible forms.)

The earlier ancient writers did not distinguish between parsnips and CARROTS. The first name for `parsnip was the Latin pastinaca; but even as late as the 1st century AD Pliny the Elder was using this to mean `carrot' as well. Later writings such as those of Apicius suggest that the Romans cultivated parsnips, and held them in some esteem. The English name `parsnip' comes, through French, from pastinaca with the ending `nip' to indicate that it was like a turnip.

In medieval Europe there was a dearth of sweeteners; sugar was a rare, imported luxury, and honey expensive. Moreover the potato, prolific source of starch, had not yet arrived from America. So the sweet, starchy parsnip was doubly useful and became a staple food. Besides being eaten as a vegetable it could be used as an ingredient in sweet dishes. Dorothy Hartley (1954) observes that parsnip has `the type of sweetness that mingles with honey and spice, so that some boiled plum and marrowfat puddings, flavoured with spice and sweetened with honey, were made with a parsnip base'.

As sugar became more readily available and with the gradual introduction of the potato, the standing of the parsnip in Europe waned. It is now eaten mainly in N. Europe, to only a moderate extent in Britain, and hardly at all in S. Europe. Nor has it gained much importance in other regions. Consumption in the USA is small. One of the reasons for such a generally halfhearted attitude is that the parsnip has a taste which, although not strong, is peculiar and not to everyone's liking. Its oddly semisweet quality makes it an awkward partner to other foods, although it goes very well with salt cod, for example. Large, old parsnips can be woody; even young ones tend to have a tough core which may be better discarded.

The parsnip is grown in colder climates, and is one of the few vegetables which is positively improved by frost. The effect of freezing the living root is to convert some of the starch into sugar. The plant can thus be left in the ground until needed.

Parsnips of modern varieties grow to 20-40 cm (8-15") long, and need lengthy cooking, although less than carrots. Most of the flavour lies directly under the skin, so peeling is to be avoided. They may be cut into large chunks, parboiled, and finished by baking or braising; or steamed and mashed. Baking produces a crisp, brown, slightly caramelized outside which is agreeable; and parsnip `chips' (US: French fries) are good.

`Wild parsnip' is a name sometimes used for an unrelated root, Cymopterus montanus, eaten by the Indians of the south-west of the USA and Mexico, where it is called `gamote'. The roots are peeled, baked, and ground into meal.

Copyright: Food and Beverage Testing Institute of Canada 2004
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