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Skirret

This is a perennial plant, a native of China, known in this country since 1548. The root is composed of fleshy tubers about the size of the little finger, and joined together at the crown or head. They used to be much esteemed in cookery. In the northern districts of Scotland the plant is cultivated under the name of "crummock." The tubers, when boiled, are served with butter. They were declared by Worlidge, in 1682, to be "the sweetest, whitest, and most pleasant of roots." Skirrets come the nearest to parsnips of any of the esculent roots, both for flavour and nutritive quality. They are rather sweeter than the parsnip, and therefore to some palates are not so agreeable.