Parsnip – my father loved this vegetable, and when roasted I too have learned to love them too. They are high in starch and sugars and do get really sweet with roasting.

Some strange superstitions surround them: keeping then on oneself will ward off snakebit but the Greeks used them mixed with axle grease (pork fat) to cure snake bite. Some thought old ones caused insanity. Roman emperor Tiberius imported them from Germany and in the middle 16the century they were a common vegetable for the poorer classes. The English took them over the Atlantic to  the USA.

Ayurveda views them as a tonic and nutritious. They pacify the heat in the liver and gallbladder and can asisist with arthritis and rheumatism. They are better than potatoes for vata and may increase kapha in spring.