Vegetables and How I Cook Them: Parsnips

Parsnips are prized here in the Midwest, where we must make full use of the summer to make do for the winter. Well, we do more than make do—we revel in the winter. Two sides of the same coin—the very full, long stomp of summer days balanced by the longer nights and shushing quiet of snow tread.

Parsnips need the summer. Planted in mid-June, the seed needs the warm soil and long days to grow thick tall greens, which feed energy to the long, carrot-like taproot below. But parsnips are meant for winter. In summer, the root is not firm and tastes exceptionally bitter. Bitterness is one form of defense for a plant—making itself unpalatable to bugs as well as animals like you and me.