Schorseneren in Witte Saus

In my grandmother's second notebook, schorseneren appear with a little warning in the margin: hands eerst invetten, grease your hands first. That is not poetry. Black salsify bleeds a sticky white milk when you peel it, and the old Dutch nickname was keukenmeidenverdriet, kitchen-maid's sorrow, for obvious reasons. A root that punishes the impatient has always been a very Dutch sort of vegetable.

But let me tell you a secret. The thing hidden under that muddy black skin is pale, gentle, and almost elegant, though I don't use that word at my own table without supervision. The name schorseneer comes through French from scorzonera, tied to old Mediterranean names for the plant and its supposed power against snakebite. The Dutch, being practical, ignored the snake and noticed dinner. They called it winterasperge, winter asparagus, because when the fields were bare and proper asparagus was months away, this root gave the same long pale tenderness in a colder season.

The method is the lesson. Acidulated water keeps the peeled roots from browning, a quiet simmer keeps them intact, and the witte saus, white sauce, must be simple enough to let the vegetable speak. Butter, flour, milk, a little cooking liquid, nutmeg. Hou het altijd simpel. If you make the sauce too rich, you bury the root after rescuing it from the earth. That would be bad manners.