Puree of Turnips

History

"Puree of Turnips" is a vegetable recipe in Mary Randolph's The Virginia House-Wife, considered the first regional American cookbook; its first edition dates to 1824 (the widely circulated Project Gutenberg text is an 1860 printing). As printed, the recipe reads: "Pare a dozen large turnips, slice them, and put them into a stew-pan, with four ounces of butter and a little salt; set the pan over a moderate fire, turn them often with a wooden spoon; when they look white, add a ladle full of veal gravy, stew them till it becomes thick; skim it, and pass it through a sieve; put the turnips in a dish, and pour the gravy over them". The dish appears among the book's vegetable recipes, alongside a companion "Ragout of Turnips" and a plainer "To Mash Turnips". Mary Randolph lived 1762–1828. Beyond the recipe text itself, the historical record consulted here does not document an origin story for this dish: there is no sourced evidence of an origin in "the royal kitchens of France," no documented 17th-century French reworking of turnip mash into a refined puree, and no evidence that the preparation carried any social-status, class, or wealth significance. Those elements of the earlier draft could not be substantiated for this specific dish and are omitted.

Ingredients

• 12 whole turnips
• 4 ounces butter
• salt
• 1 ladle veal gravy

Instructions

1. Pare and slice a dozen large turnips. Put them into a stew-pan with four ounces of butter and a little salt. Set the pan over a moderate fire and turn them often with a wooden spoon. When they look white, add a ladle full of veal gravy and stew them until the mixture becomes thick. Skim it and pass it through a sieve. Put the turnips in a dish and pour the gravy over them.