Skirret - everlasting vegetable

As more and more of our vegetable needs have been met with visits to the green grocers, costermongers and supermarkets more cottage garden vegetables have been lost to us all.

An old and useful vegetable that would benefit everyone is skirret. Skirret is a root vegetable ... to best describe its flavour would be to imagine a cross between a parsnip and carrot. Once a skirret plant in the garden then it's there forever as they are said to be everlasting. As with carrots and parsnips they have green foliage on top but then they produce a multitude of roots or root tubas and as the roots or tubas are broken off for use then more grow in their place.

Skirret can be used in stir frying, soups, stews, casseroles, baking, chipping ... in fact, it is a welcome addition or substitute to any other root vegetable and therefore can be used to vary old favourite recipes. This lovely, Elizabethan vegetable is worth a place in anyone's garden or back yard. It can be grown from purchasing a small root portion, grown from seed or is even easy to propagate from a small root cutting.

Additional note: For those who have difficulty in acquiring skirret - packets of seeds are available at http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/