Don Burke Hatecrimes Parsnips

I’ve never really bothered to think about where I stand on the controversial issue of parsnips. In fact, until I read about Don Burke and Donna Hay going head to head over the root vegetable, I didn’t actually realise parsnips were controversial! What an idiot I am.

According to the Sunday Telegraph:

Gardening guru Don Burke and master chef Donna Hay have gone to war – over the humble parsnip.

Mr Burke fired the first shot last week when he used his radio program to slam Ms Hay and the The Sunday Telegraph for publishing parsnip recipes in the Sunday Magazine.

Mr Burke described Ms Hay as “wretched” for serving parsnips to people as they were not fit for pigs.

“I’m outraged, I’m angry, I’m upset, I’m crushed. I’m all of those things and a lot more,” he said on air. “If you get that appalling newspaper today, The Sunday Telegraph, and get out Sunday Magazine … that wretched Donna Hay has got two pages of parsnip recipes. I respect pigs, I like pigs, but I wouldn’t give my pet pig parsnips.”

Is he taking the piss? I mean, really? I don’t understand how I could have lived on this planet for twenty-eight years and been completely oblivious to the fact there are hardcore parsnip haters out there like Don Burke.

Donna Hay (and the parsnip industry – THERE IS AN INDUSTRY?!) has fired back.

Ms Hay said Mr Burke was “out of touch” and sent a box of parsnips with recipes to Mr Burke to challenge him to confront his prejudices. “I was surprised he was having a go. It’s just a parsnip,” she said. “If Don cared to step into a modern restaurant he would find everyone’s using parsnips – they’re in vogue.”

Vegetable growers’ association AUSVEG said Mr Burke’s comments were misguided. “Don Burke is entitled to his view, but his expertise is probably more in the area of plants than vegetables,” AUSVEG spokesman Hugh Tobin said.

Parsnip grower Angelo Lamattina, 33, said Mr Burke’s comments were “un-Australian”.

“Where does he get off?” he said. “Here’s some bloke who had some TV show and reckons he can come out and bag our work. It takes six months to harvest a perfect parsnip and Don Burke should take the challenge to come to the farm and see if he’s up to it.”

And here is the point where the already slightly surreal story began to blow my mind… this is not the first time Don Burke has hatecrimed parsnips and felt the fury of the pro-parsnip lobby.

It’s not the first time Mr Burke has had a run-in with parsnip fans. The Burke’s Backyard website features an apology and recipes from several years ago after he made “disparaging comments about the vegetable”.

The gardener suggested parents who made their children eat parsnips deserved to be shot.

“I had people who loved parsnips writing me letters and putting in angry calls,” Mr Burke said. “Some challenged me to come to their farms so I accepted I was beaten and we put that on the website.”

Mr Burke said he rates Ms Hay as one of world’s top chefs.

“But I condemn all people who like parsnips and challenge Donna to present them to me in a way that’s appealing,” he said.

Did you catch that dramatic last bit? DON BURKE CONDEMNS ALL PEOPLE WHO LIKE PARSNIPS. He condemns them. Amazing.

Of course, vegetables do have a way of prompting surprisingly furious reactions from people. Like when Angie Hart hatecrimed mushrooms. Or when my beloved gay husband William Mills hatecrimed eggplants in an email he sent to me a few years back (I saved it because it made me laugh heartily at the time).

Isn’t this the worst thing you have ever seen. I mean, to think that eggplant could be loved as a vegetable, really it just makes my blood boil. I am so sick of people promoting eggplant, suggesting that it is tasty and so forth. Eggplant is always either bitter, dripping with oil, tough and chewy or just generally vile. And now the Age is pushing the eggplant barrow. I’m going to do a letter to the editor.

Do you hatecrime vegetables? And does anyone know whether Don Burke’s step-father was a parsnip, or if his dog was hit by a drink-driving parnsip, or just WHAT ON EARTH LED TO HIS INSANE ANTI-PARSNIP VIEWS?

MORE: Don Burke lashes out at Donna Hay over parsnips