Parsnips

ju10prd

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I've looked high and low in previous years to find turnips for a traditional Brit Christmas dinner. Been to veg. and fruit markets in the Cibao, all range of supermarkets around the country and have come up blank.

Can anyone help?

Yes there are other trimmings for a traditional Brit Christmas I would also like rather than the compromises I make, but the slightly roasted sweet flavored 'turnip' is something I do miss. So let's start with this.

I meant Parsnips.....mods please change
 
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AlterEgo

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I see the word "parsnips" and I immediately think of Matilda, she also has a never ending quest to find parsnips. Remember Mikel with his smuggled in yellow lemons? Well that's Matilda with her parsnips. They're like gold to her.

In other words, I don't think you'll find them in DR. :(
 

ju10prd

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I see the word "parsnips" and I immediately think of Matilda, she also has a never ending quest to find parsnips. Remember Mikel with his smuggled in yellow lemons? Well that's Matilda with her parsnips. They're like gold to her.

In other words, I don't think you'll find them in DR. :(

Thank you for amending. Always have mixed up turnips and parsnips......you can find the former in DR and I like them raw....but with side effects lol.

If Matilda hasn't found them I am in for further disappointment, it appears.
 

bronzeallspice

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The best way to have a supply is to plant your own, if possible. On a trip back home bring seed packets
of your favorite veggies and plant them in your backyard or in containers.
 

ju10prd

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The best way to have a supply is to plant your own, if possible. On a trip back home bring seed packets
of your favorite veggies and plant them in your backyard or in containers.

Considering Tesco (UK's biggest supermarket chain) are buying increasingly from DR, I do hope they ask for DR farmers to add yet another 'root' vegetable to those they produce so well up in those hills. I can only hope.
 

AlterEgo

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The best way to have a supply is to plant your own, if possible. On a trip back home bring seed packets
of your favorite veggies and plant them in your backyard or in containers.

My brother grows them on Long Island. I don't think they'd grow right in DR because they are a cold weather crop, and are best when dug up after a frost, which makes them sweeter.
 

ju10prd

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The wild parsnip from which the modern cultivated varieties were derived is a plant of dry rough grassland and waste places, particularly on chalk and limestone soils.[24] Parsnips are biennials but are normally grown as annuals. Sandy and loamy soils are preferable instead of silt, clay, and stony ground; the latter produces short, forked roots.. Parsnip seed significantly deteriorates in viability if stored for long. Seeds are usually planted in early spring, as soon as the ground can be worked to a fine tilth, in the position where the plants are to grow. The growing plants are thinned and kept weed-free. Harvesting begins in late fall after the first frost, and continues through winter. The rows can be covered with straw to enable the crop to be lifted during frosty weather.[25] Low soil temperatures cause some of the starches stored in the roots to be converted into sugars, giving them a sweeter taste.[26]

Seems that harvesting them after a frost is key to that sweet taste.......but they do get frosts up in those hills near Constanza occasionally at least.

I tried the market in Bonao many times, but with no joy, knowing a lot of the stuff from Constanza makes it to that market daily.
 
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bronzeallspice

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My brother grows them on Long Island. I don't think they'd grow right in DR because they are a cold weather crop, and are best when dug up after a frost, which makes them sweeter.

It looks like it takes parsnips 120 to 180 days to mature from seeds to roots. So if someone were to
plant it in December (cool weather) that means the earliest would be in March and the latest by June.

Maybe there's a chance in the DR.


http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/parsnips/how-to-grow-parsnips.htm
 

bronzeallspice

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AE, didn't Matilda plant parsnips in her garden at one time? I seem to recall her mentioning in her blog about planting a veggie that she missed eating from her homeland.
 

ju10prd

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Things are changing as to availability of vegetables in DR so there is hope. Last winter I came across Russian Kale....another winter veggie....in Super Pola in LT. It appeared in Super Pola in Bella Vista two weeks back too and we now get a small quantity of regular kale there weekly.
 

hammerdown

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There is a difference between Kale and Parsnips....the Kale that is grown here is grown by foreigners for foreigners.....the odd Dominican will pick it up too, but not too many....I have access to Russian and Ethiopian Kale, both grown by foreigners, and the closest thing you will get to parsnips is White Radish....
 

AlterEgo

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AE, didn't Matilda plant parsnips in her garden at one time? I seem to recall her mentioning in her blog about planting a veggie that she missed eating from her homeland.

I'm not sure, but I guarantee when she sees the word "Parsnip" in a thread title tomorrow morning, it will be the first one she opens :)

I hope to stash some in my suitcase for her.
 

wrecksum

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In what seems like a thousand years of British/English Christmas dinners, never have I encountered a Parsnip.
Brussels, carrots,onions of course have had their 15 mins of fame; an occasional vagrant leek or passing pimento may have shown its alien face but in the deep black of the industrial Midlands a Parsnip had no chance!

My English wife got into the passing fad ,back in the previous decade or so of 'serving the Parsnip'.roasted, broiled,smashed or broiled but it was always as a subsitute for something actually edible.
but,in actual truth,it is only fit for the Scots.

Or the bin...
 

Chirimoya

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Try cepa de apio as a substitute (creole celery root/celeriac). It grows in the Constanza area and is almost always available at the main supermarkets.
Roasted yuca (cassava) is pretty good too.
 

Meemselle

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My English wife got into the passing fad ,back in the previous decade or so of 'serving the Parsnip'.roasted, broiled,smashed or broiled but it was always as a subsitute for something actually edible.
but,in actual truth,it is only fit for the Scots.

Or the bin...

I disagree! Parsnips deserve a place in the panoply of vegetables!
 

Matilda

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How cruel to see the word Parsnips on DR1 and open the post excitedly to see where you can find them in the DR!!

I tried growing them from seed and we live at 1500 feet up so is well chilly in the winter, but no frost. I put ice cubes on them daily and told the seeds it was frost, I planted them and put them in the freezer, I did everything but the seeds did not grow. The only option is to get someone to bring them for you and then the joy is unbounded.

Matilda
 

dv8

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back home my parents grow in their garden something we call pietruszka, which is a word used both for green parsley and root parsnip. white root under ground and green bush above. so, in DR they have the green bush. easily available everywhere. is it a kind that grows without edible root? in poland i have never seen green leafy part without edible white root.
 

InsanelyOne

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I've been buying what I presume to be parsnips from Supermercado Nacional in Punta Cana for years. I discarded the packaging and I don't recall how it was labeled.

What do you think? Parsnip or some other root?

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