I came to Australia because of the bananas. Now with Cyclone Larry has gone and totally flattened most of the country’s banana crop.
I should explain that I married an Australian because that J could grow bananas in her back yard made her seem very exotic. By the time I discovered that every Australian has a banana plant in the backyard it was too late and I I’d lined up all my shrimp on the proverbial BBQ.
Bananas are an exotic fruit to anybody from the UK, even an early Gen Xer like myself.
My father was born in 1935 in Mill Hill, north London. He spent the war with his parents hiding under a metal table in the kitchen while surviving on dreary rations. His was luxury was to munch on homemade bananas sculpted from parsnips.
Now, here is a gift from my paternal grandmother to all Australian’s contemplating a banana free winter.
Baked mock bananas
1. Peel parsnips and carve into the shapes of half bananas
2. Put in a heavy oven pan
3 Cover with brown sugar, knobs of butter and dark rum.
4. Sprinkle with cinnamon and all spice.
5. Bake for 30 minutes at 180C or until soft
6. Serve with thick King Island cream
Become a Facebook fan. Follow me on Twitter. 
{ 1 trackback }
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Eeeergh – that sounds terrible
Awww, come on. With the spices etc they are great. And you better get used to it.
That’s a really scary recipe. It’s like turning… chokos into apples…
I’m already suffering banana withdrawal symptoms. What’s gonna happen to the price of banana cake? There’ll be no leftover rotten bananas to use up at all!
…or carrot into cake. Parsnip arn’t that far away from carrots or, erm, bananas. Sort of sweet and long. I’m not convincing myself am I?
I dunno Ed… A Parsnip sundae just doesn’t sound right… and you can’t pass up a good ole banana sundae can you?
I wonder what starbucks will do seeing as they have recently introduced banana themed beverages!
Apparently during WW II children were given ‘banana’ sandwiches made with mashed turnip flavoured with banana essence. Now THAT sounds truly disgusting.
Deborah, it looks like Starbucks might have to introduce parsnip themed beverages. They’ve had a bad record in Melbourne with several stores closing and the new variation may not help.
Janet, they do sound htruly horrible. I think this is a case for Heston Blumenthal. I reckon you’re all being mean to the humble parship/turnip. With their sugar content and the right treatment they could taste pretty good – of course, we’re not talking parsnip smoothies here.
I agree there are some truly great recipes for parsnips (‘pasturnakes’ in very old books) and turnips – its the banana essence that’s the problem!
That’s the spirit! …resilience in the face of adversity.
Does it taste anything like bananas? Or did you add so much rum and cream that it doesn’t matter?
-Elizabeth
Ooops!!! Sorry about that… the link to my site on my previous post will be broken. (That’s what I get for not using “copy and paste”)
But it’s really not my fault. I was still laughing at the idea of parsnips masquerading as bananas.
-Elizabeth
I love parsnips but dressing them up as faux bananas is just plain wrong.
And what is up with the price of cabbage lately? $5 for a whole cabbage at Paddy’s Markets.
$5? You are lucky. Apparently they were recently $8 in Brisbane!. See the post above this one. Parsnips $7 a kilo. Rabobank reckons prices were up near 12 per cent last year. And it’s not because of the crazy weather. Apparently we want posher veggies and there is a hint that the retailers are taking us for a ride – wholesale prices haven’t moved too much.
So soon cabbage soup will be as de rigeur as lamb shanks? Where will that leave Charlie Bucket?
He’ll be confused I suppose Helen. The world is topsy turvy.Who’d have believed we’d all be paying over the odds for nearly rotten mishapen vegetables from the Farmers’ Market.
A cataclysm of epic proportions. I like the pommy spunk of making do with parsnips for a better Britain. Hoorah! As long as it doesn’t get to the stage where it’s cheaper to fashion bananas from truffles…