Parsnips and tu
rnips are similar in that they both have miserable flavors and textures--they're like horrible imitations of potatoes that simply haven't got it right. They are the rubbish covers of Beatles songs of the vegetable world. They're somewhat similar in appearance to the real thing, and if you're not paying attention, you might be fooled, but ultimately they're an unpleasant surprise. There is nothing worse at the dinner table than biting into what you thought was a lovely potato and discovering it to be none other than the dreaded parsnip.There is no situation where someone could hand you a parsnip, and you could not say, "Hey-- lemme do ya one better: here's a potato!" Parsnips, however, have one redeeming trait: they are the subject of one of my favorite idioms:
"Fine words butter no parsnips."
World Wide Words has an interesting discussion of the origins of this expression here.
On the topic of celery, which is a vile form of veg if I ever unintentionally ate one, I can
only say this: there are two kinds of people in the world--people who hate celery, and people who cannot taste celery. If you complain about celery, non-celery-detesting-people invariably claim that it has no taste. They are horribly wrong: I can genuinely smell it from the other side of a room, and it is instantaneously recognizable in any sort of a soup, stew, or salad. Apart from it's polluting flavor, it has a shockingly disgusting texture that ought to put any right-thinking person off their food for several days!How do people consume these horrifying vegetables? I do not know.
