Name: To Mash Turnips
Ingredients: a small handful of salt

To Mash Turnips

Ingredients

a small handful of salt

Directions

WHEN they are boiled quite tender, squeeze them as dry as possible — put them into a sauce pan, mash them with a wooden spoon, and rub them through a colander; add a little bit of butter, keep stirring them till the butter is melted and well mixed with them, and they are ready for table.
TURNIP TOPS,
ARE the shoots which grow out, (in the spring,) from the old turnip roots. Put them in cold water an hour before they are dressed; the more water they
104 THE VIRGINIA HOUSEWIFE.
are boiled in, the better they will look; if boiled in a small quantity of water, they will taste bitter; when the water boils, put in a small handful of salt, and then your vegetables; they are still better boiled with bacon in the Virginia style: if fresh and young, they will be done in about twenty minutes — drain them on the back of a sieve, and put them under the bacon.

By Mary Randolph (1762–1828). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.