"What is a parsnip?" ...

 ... the hairdresser asks me (in French).

I go into town early in the hope that I can have my hair cut before the Christmas rush.  I am lucky - a man getting a final whisk over with the hair dryer and otherwise the place is empty.

I practise my limited French vocabulary on her and ask her what she's doing for Christmas and the New Year. Not surprisingly perhaps, given her job, she will be busy.

So, the conversation turns to what I am doing.  A Christmas Day lunch with friends.  Would it be a "buffet espagnol?" which (if I remember correctly from an club evening some years back) is where everyone brings a dish.  Not quite. But they will be bringing the Christmas pud.

So, of course, it being a French conversation, we are now discussing in detail what the meal will include.  Are we having turkey?  No, a capon (tastier than a small, scraggy turkey).  And what will we be having with the capon - green beans?  This is where we get into deep water. I volunteer the word "parnais" which is a mistake, as the word had no "r" in it.  But even saying it without the "r" elicits a blank look.  So now she's confused and I'm confused about this French word and how it's spelt / pronounced, which in English is "parsnip".

I volunteer "like a carrot, but white". "Ah, navet". "No" I've seen the word, but I know it's not that (it's a turnip I discover later).  I try adding, "cooked in the oven with rosemary", but that's just adding to the confusion. 

So we decide to discuss the first course.  I don't even attempt to describe what we are really having - butternut squash soup - and substitute "potimarron" (another kind of squash, round, bright orange and lacking in taste) which she does know.  But it goes downhill again when I tell her I will be adding ginger to the soup. She is very suspicious of this culinary practice.  Fortunately by now my haircut has reached a stage where, with some relief for both of us, we can return to the topic of "more off the back or is it fine as it is?"

And the reason for this immense confusion over "panais" (parsnips)?  And the no-go area of butternut squash?  Fifteen years ago, when we first came here, neither were to be found anywhere, except occasionally at a farmers' market where the Brits shopped. Butternut squash was unknown and not grown.  Parsnips were grown, but only to be fed to animals. And why not for humans? Because during the Second World War that was the diet the French were reduced to eating. 

Nowadays, much to our delight, butternut squash and parsnips are to be found everywhere. But these essential additions to a full-blown British Christmas Day lunch with friends quite elude the comprehension of a young hairdresser in France Profonde.