It's hard to feel the seasons in the city. Sure, the temperature and the light changes. Summer means long evenings on bar back patios at night and brunch outside on the weekends; winter means grey slush and getting home from work hours after dark. But in terms of growing things and seasonal eating, without a yard to guide me I rely on the farmers' markets to teach me what foods are in season. Now that the thaw has come and there will soon be more than root-cellared onions and nitrogen-preserved apples at the markets, I'm going to start a semi-monthly feature highlighting a seasonal fruit or vegetable or product and the farm that grew/made it.
This week is a bit of a cheat--I did not actually take note of the name of the farm where I bought my veggies this week. In fact, my realization that I hadn't noticed was part of the reason that I decided to start this new feature. Also, the featured veggie this week is the parsnip, which is not actually in season right now. (Though in my defense, here in the Hudson Valley NOTHING is really in season right now so for the time being I'll celebrate the miracles of effective cold storage. The Union Square Saturday Market this week was still featuring apples, potatoes, onions, and not much else in the way of produce.)
So we'll call this a preview- The Parsnip!
A parsnip is a root vegetable and looks like an ivory-colored carrot. The ones you find at the grocery store can be quite large and woody and what drew me to these was their diminutive stature. I easily selected about a pound of small spears no more than 6 inches long. They can be eaten raw or cooked, and were once used as sweeteners in Europe before sugar was widely available. In the New York area they are in season in April and May and then again from October through December. With my haul I made a carrot-parsnip gratin with a cotija cheese-breadcrumb topping.
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