> wrote:

> It is simply that although parsnips are a basic British vegetable, they
> do not feature at all in the cooking of most of the rest of Europe. I
> am a disciple of French cooking BUT they do not have the parsnip.
> Continental friends have never heard of it.

If the continent you refer to is that of Europe, you must not have any
German friends. Parsnips are fairly widely available and used in
Germany and that has always been the case. They are also not exactly
unknown in (the European part of) Russia. Oh, and panais aren't really
unknown and unused in France, either, even if they are much rarer now
than they used to be.

Victor