Mixed veggies

NOW spring has sprung, we hear about ‘‘the flowers that bloom in the spring tra la’’, but fairminded people will ask: Why not sing praises to vegetables? They are more essential to life. Their names are earthy and mysterious. To make amends for long neglect, today’s reminiscences offer a vegetable tribute.

Parsnips

When my father had an allotment, we dug next to an old Suffolk man who loved parsnips: he called them ‘‘parslets’’. Had he misheard? Or was this a dialect form? How could it be, if the suffix let had its usual meaning of small, as in piglet or droplet?

Aren’t parsnips kindred to turnips, through the — nip?

Neeps and nips

Nip or neep comes from OE naep, related to Latin napus: a root veg made by crossing cabbage and turnip (says Wikipedia). It’s a rutabaga or swede. It stars in Scottish cooking on Burns Nights as neeps and tatties with haggis and a dram.

The tur component may (says OED) derive from ‘‘turning round’’ (French tour, tourner), since turnips are round, and can be picked by twisting them round in the ground. Yet parsnip, from

Latin pastinare, to ‘‘dig or trench the ground’’, got its nip only ‘‘by association with turnip’’

(Wikipedia now). Still mysterious!

Legume lore

What have peas and pease (as in pease Pudding Hot) got to do with

one another? A pease is a pea, in old spelling. A ‘‘pease pudding hot’’ is a pea pudding, and begins a children’s song and game. The

Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes,

p345, explains that the singers put one hand on another in a pile while they sing, faster and faster, till the heap collapses; this is ‘‘for amusement and to warm hands on a cold day’’. Versions of it are still played.

Virgil’s veggies

As a student I found myself studying vegetables at some length in Virgil’s Georgics, much of which is a practical work on farming. I wondered why it was a set text for 18yearold townies. And when I looked up the English names of Virgil’s veggies, and read of caltrops and cleavers, I was none the wiser; caltrops are spiked metal balls, used as weapons to thwart warhorses; and cleavers are axes. Are they edible vegetables too? Do they look like the weapons? Is anybody planting them this season?

Onionphrases

Obviously I don’t know my

onions (as the French say, = ‘‘I am not knowledgeable about my subject’’). But the French value onions. Where would cooking be without them (the French and the onions)?

Leeks

If I have a signature dish it’s leek and potato soup. Leeks delight all the senses. I like the look of leeks, that greygreen muted splendour! Or their taste: ambrosia, food of the Olympian gods. And smell: when cooking them, slop in the pepper, stir well, lick your fingers, and sniff. Hear them bubbling! Relish the tactile moment when you, the cook, decide to mash them lightly, to get that knobbly texture into the first mouthful.

Missed opportunity

Why on earth did Wordsworth praise those Daffodils when he could have been praising leeks! But wait! I feel a sonnet coming

on: O greygreen Marvel! O mostvalued Veg,/ Surpassing beets, sprouts, kales, and all the rest/ Far and away, for thou art our pledge/ Of health and wellness, winner of my quest . . ./ Readers, finish the poem, and win a small (vegetable) prize by writing to wordwaysdunedin@hotmail.com