Our viands

The mangold is never sent to table, but beet is much esteemed, and is commonly added to salads, although it requires to be boiled carefully, and not cut or pricked, 222 OUR VIANDS or it will lose all its colour. It is now usually sold ready boiled by the greengrocer. The parsnip, although good and nutritious, is not a favourite vegetable, except in certain localities. In the north of Scotland, we are told, parsnips mixed with potatoes and butter are much esteemed, and to this mess salt fish is added in Catholic countries, and they certainly eat well either with salt fish or salt beef, but should always have a little dripping added to them in boiling. The Dutch cook them by pouring over them, after they are boiled, a little butter in which a small quantity of sugar has been dissolved, and then browning them in the oven. A root in many respects similar to the parsnip is the skirret, formerly so highly esteemed by the Romans as to have been specially imported from the Rhine for the emperor's table, whilst it served as one of the ingredients used to garnish the famous Lucanian boar. ' Around him lay whatever could excite, With pungent force, the jaded appetite ; Rapes, lettuce, radishes, anchovy brine, With skirrets, and the lees of Coan wine.' Skirrets have recently re-appeared in the market, and perhaps will once more become the fashion, although they appear to be too sweet to suit modern taste as a vegetable. Those, however, who enjoy parsnips and sweet potatoes may probably relish the skirret, as also the scorzonera, which at one time was highly esteemed, not only as a vegetable, but as a cure for snake bites. It is still some- times sent to table in France and Spain. The yam, that gigantic root extensively cultivated in Africa, Asia, America, and the West Indies, is never seen ROOTS 223 in our markets, but is eaten as bread, either roasted or boiled, by the natives of the countries in which it grows. The roots sometimes weigh as much as thirty pounds, but are not relished by Europeans. The only other root we need notice here is the Jerusalem artichoke — a name corrupted from girasole, which is the Italian name for sunflower, of which it is a species. It is very easily grown, and not very readily exterminated when once introduced into a garden. It is a native of Brazil, and was Drought over in 1667, being much esteemed before potatoes became so generally cultivated. It is not much relished now by the poor, but is frequently found on the tables of the wealthy, and, when well cooked, is excellent, especially when sent to table, as in France, with white sauce and a garnishing of Parmesan cheese lightly browned. It also makes a capital soup. But of all vegetables known to us, perhaps the onion and its allies — notwithstanding the suspicion of vulgarity attaching to them — are the most universal and indispensable in the culinary art, for how insipid would soups, sauces, hashes, stews, gravies, salads, and seasonings of all kinds be without the soup^on of the onion, the shalot, or the stronger — and yet more vulgar — garlic. Whilst, as a vegetable, what can be found more grateful to the general palate, and more wholesome also, than the Spanish onion — roasted or stewed — or the leek, the national badge of Wales, and appreciated by epicures everywhere ?