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Mashed Parsnips
Wash and scrape some parsnips, cut them in pieces lengthwise, put them in a saucepan with boiling water, a little salt, and a small lump of dripping, and boil till quite tender; remove, and place them on a colander, drain, and press all the water out of them. Mash them till quite smooth with a wooden spoon, then put them in a saucepan with a tablespoonful of milk or a small lump of butter, a little salt and pepper and stir over the fire till thoroughly hot again. Turn it into a dish, and serve at once.
A straightforward vegetable side that needs almost no translation, though a few of Oscar's assumptions are worth spelling out.
- DrippingThe fat rendered from roasted beef or pork, kept in a crock by the stove. A tablespoon of butter or a neutral oil in the cooking water does the same job of softening the boil; the flavor contribution is minor.
- Core the older rootsLarge parsnips, roughly an inch and a half across or more, tend to develop a tough central core that stays fibrous after boiling. The recipe only says to cut them lengthwise into pieces; if the middle looks woody, cut it away before boiling.
- Drying is the hingeBoiled parsnips carry a lot of water, and the instruction to drain and press is the whole difference between a puree and a puddle. After draining, return them to the dry pan over low heat for a minute or two to steam off the remaining moisture.
- Mash, do not processParsnips carry less of the starch that turns gluey under a blade than potatoes do, but a food processor still tends to whip them into a slack paste; a masher, ricer, or food mill gives better texture.
- TimingCut pieces are tender in 15 to 20 minutes in salted boiling water. Test with a knife tip rather than by the clock, since size varies more than the recipe allows.
- SeasoningA tablespoon of milk is a modest enrichment by modern standards. Two to three tablespoons of butter or cream per pound gives a smoother result, and parsnips take well to a scrape of nutmeg or a spoonful of the roasting juices from whatever they accompany.
- YieldTwo pounds of parsnips, trimmed and cored, serves four as a side.
Parsnips were a staple sweetener and starch in northern Europe long before the potato displaced them, and they kept a place on nineteenth-century American tables largely because they overwinter in the ground and are sweeter after frost, the plant's starch having converted to sugar in the cold. By the time Oscar Tschirky compiled his book at the Waldorf around the turn of the twentieth century, the parsnip had slipped into the supporting cast: a plain boiled-and-mashed root served alongside roasts.