The Lemon Fool

Bert has a bag full of parsnips which he takes to his local farmers’ market.

In the first hour he sells 6/7ths of his load plus 1/7th of a parsnip.
In the second hour he sells 6/7ths of the remaining parsnips plus 1/7th of a parsnip.
In the third hour he sells 6/7ths of the remaining parsnips plus 1/7th of a parsnip.
In the fourth hour he sells 6/7ths of the remaining parsnips plus 1/7th of a parsnip. By this time he has no parsnips left.

How many were originally in his bag?

No parsnips were harmed during the making of this puzzle.

Cinelli

cinelli wrote:Bert has a bag full of parsnips which he takes to his local farmers’ market.

In the first hour he sells 6/7ths of his load plus 1/7th of a parsnip.
In the second hour he sells 6/7ths of the remaining parsnips plus 1/7th of a parsnip.
In the third hour he sells 6/7ths of the remaining parsnips plus 1/7th of a parsnip.
In the fourth hour he sells 6/7ths of the remaining parsnips plus 1/7th of a parsnip. By this time he has no parsnips left.

How many were originally in his bag?

No parsnips were harmed during the making of this puzzle.

Cinelli

Sounds like school maths, from ... I forget what age.

To start with what adds up, that's one parsnip in the fourth hour. Who buys a single parsnip?
To have had one left implies that he sold 7 of 7+1= 8 in the third hour. Which in turn implies 7*7=49 of 7*8+1=57 in the second hour, and thus 7*49=343 of the original 7*57+1=400 in the first hour. That's a lot of earlybird customers!


Is it time to make the first parsnip soup of the season? Feels a bit early for that. My mum always said the parsnips are never at their best until they've had a good frost.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

cinelli wrote:Bert has a bag full of parsnips which he takes to his local farmers’ market.

In the first hour he sells 6/7ths of his load plus 1/7th of a parsnip.
In the second hour he sells 6/7ths of the remaining parsnips plus 1/7th of a parsnip.
In the third hour he sells 6/7ths of the remaining parsnips plus 1/7th of a parsnip.
In the fourth hour he sells 6/7ths of the remaining parsnips plus 1/7th of a parsnip. By this time he has no parsnips left.

How many were originally in his bag?

No parsnips were harmed during the making of this puzzle.

Cinelli

Sounds like school maths, from ... I forget what age.

To start with what adds up, that's one parsnip in the fourth hour. Who buys a single parsnip?
To have had one left implies that he sold 7 of 7+1= 8 in the third hour. Which in turn implies 7*7=49 of 7*8+1=57 in the second hour, and thus 7*49=343 of the original 7*57+1=400 in the first hour. That's a lot of earlybird customers!


Is it time to make the first parsnip soup of the season? Feels a bit early for that. My mum always said the parsnips are never at their best until they've had a good frost.

It was the parsnips that caught my eye - I don't usually strain my aging brain to the Games, Puzzles and Riddles.
Parsnips are not a Scottish vegetable, and we certainly would never have seen our mothers using them. I like them and try to include them when I am (occasionally) on cook's duty. But my other half is not so keen, and currently maintains that they are not yet in Season. I wonder how the cutter managed to accurately cut 1/7th of a parsnip - now that really would be a puzzle.
That's a nice solution you described - I confess that I started from the first hour, using brute force algebra to obtain a solution after the final hour, and came up with the formula

n= 1 + 7 + 7*7 + 7*7*7 = 400

Parsnips are sold by weight, not count.

Selling 6/7ths of the weight leaves the result indeterminate.

Puzzle should be reset using pomegranates.

scotia wrote:It was the parsnips that caught my eye - I don't usually strain my aging brain to the Games, Puzzles and Riddles.
Parsnips are not a Scottish vegetable, and we certainly would never have seen our mothers using them.

Interesting. My mother - who loved parsnips at least as much as I do - was from further north than you. I never really thought about whether the Scandies have them.

Neeps to a Jock are turnips rather than parsnips, yesno? Turnips I can take or leave, which puts them well below parsnips in my culinary repertoire. Though of course both these roots help take us through the season of very little fresh seasonal food. Maybe 6/7 parsnips to 1/7 turnips make good sense.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

scotia wrote:It was the parsnips that caught my eye - I don't usually strain my aging brain to the Games, Puzzles and Riddles.
Parsnips are not a Scottish vegetable, and we certainly would never have seen our mothers using them.

Interesting. My mother - who loved parsnips at least as much as I do - was from further north than you. I never really thought about whether the Scandies have them.

Neeps to a Jock are turnips rather than parsnips, yesno? Turnips I can take or leave, which puts them well below parsnips in my culinary repertoire. Though of course both these roots help take us through the season of very little fresh seasonal food. Maybe 6/7 parsnips to 1/7 turnips make good sense.

We called them "white carrots" never occurred to me they might be a foreign delicacy.

Turnips are turnips: tough things that you can't easily hollow out for guising but you did anyways, they can't be used for making chips like potatoes no matter how many times my mum tried
- English folk call them Swedes
- I've seen them sold as Swedish Turnips in Australia

-sd

servodude wrote:Turnips are turnips: tough things that you can't easily hollow out for guising but you did anyways, they can't be used for making chips like potatoes no matter how many times my mum tried
- English folk call them Swedes
- I've seen them sold as Swedish Turnips in Australia
-sd

Um, not this English folk. Turnips are like a mild, overgrown radish; swedes are much bigger and yellow. Neither is held in the same esteem as parsnips in my kitchen, though I'll use them from time to time as an ingredient.

wikipedia wrote:The turnip or white turnip (Brassica rapa subsp. rapa) is a root vegetable commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, fleshy taproot. The word turnip is a compound of turn as in turned/rounded on a lathe and neep, derived from Latin napus, the word for the plant. Small, tender varieties are grown for human consumption, while larger varieties are grown as feed for livestock. In the north of England, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall and parts of Canada (Quebec, Newfoundland, Manitoba and the Maritimes), the word turnip (or neep) often refers to rutabaga, also known as swede, a larger, yellow root vegetable in the same genus (Brassica).[1]

UncleEbenezer wrote:Turnips are like a mild, overgrown radish; swedes are much bigger and yellow.

I'm pretty sure it flips somewhere around Carlisle

servodude wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Turnips are like a mild, overgrown radish; swedes are much bigger and yellow.

I'm pretty sure it flips somewhere around Carlisle

I'm sure in my youth we went to the shops to buy a turnip, and made a turnip lantern from it.

Now we'd go to the shops and buy a swede, but still make a turnip lantern with it.

Still the same, yellow-fleshed thing though.

I wonder what we'd have asked for if we really wanted a turnip...

Scott.

I'm definitely deviating from the subject as I am off to ramble on about root vegetables - but at my age rambling is a lot easier than working out puzzles.
Both my father and his father were keen gardeners - floral and vegetable. Early season turnips were purple top milan and snowball - and you could eat them raw. Mid season was the larger golden ball - but Dad thought that was a bit on the coarse side. Neither grew swedes - that was a farmer's crop. And yes it was a swede that was traditionally used for a turnip (or tumshie) lantern. Turnips and swedes were always called neeps - and the accompaniment to haggis was always neeps and tatties. Apparently (from Wiki) neeps is derived from the Latin name for the plant - napus, but both my father and grandfather spent most of their working life in coal mines - where there was not much Latin used, so I'm not convinced by the correlation
Back to parsnips - they need a long growing season and require an air temperature around 12C to germinate - so Scotland is beyond their northern limit as a farmed crop. However, thanks to our lorry drivers, they are now available in Scottish Supermarkets. And with global warming?

My root vegetable recipe - cut potatoes into wedges, lightly cover with olive oil, and roast for about 30 minutes. Cut parsnips, carrots and swedes into batons, and boil for 15 minutes - then into the oven and roast for a further 15 minutes (with a light covering of olive oil). For the carnivores among us, there is a good selection of beef, lamb and poultry offerings from M&S which have been slow cooked, and just need another spell in the oven, along with the veg.

And my Parsnip puzzle is very simple to express: Parsnips. What are they for?

(PS. There isn't an entirely satisfactory answer)

XFool wrote:And my Parsnip puzzle is very simple to express: Parsnips. What are they for?

(PS. There isn't an entirely satisfactory answer)

There are some extremely satisfactory answers in my kitchen. From soups to desserts, via a hearty main course.

Come to think of it, given how beautifully they go together with a wee dram, I'm disappointed to hear they're not also a Jock staple.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

XFool wrote:And my Parsnip puzzle is very simple to express: Parsnips. What are they for?

(PS. There isn't an entirely satisfactory answer)

There are some extremely satisfactory answers in my kitchen. From soups to desserts, via a hearty main course.

"desserts"? Shudder...

You don't also go in for beetroot flavoured ice cream, do you?

XFool wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:

XFool wrote:And my Parsnip puzzle is very simple to express: Parsnips. What are they for?

(PS. There isn't an entirely satisfactory answer)

There are some extremely satisfactory answers in my kitchen. From soups to desserts, via a hearty main course.

"desserts"? Shudder...

You don't also go in for beetroot flavoured ice cream, do you?

Never encountered it. Can't remember when I last had ice cream (beetroot yes, usually in a salad context).

But now you mention it, brew up some parsnips as if for a soup, going light on savoury ingredients. Grind in a nutmeg (brings out the flavour), and a ripe banana as magic ingredient. And a splash of booze (e.g. rum or brandy) to taste. Cream it all, and serve hot or cold over ice cream.

I imagine it could be combined with other fruits, such as pears. Or even berries. Or maybe a bit of coconut. But I haven't tried these variants: I only ever cook any kind of dessert once in a blue moon.

Bear in mind parsnips are very, very sweet, so the more traditional dessert ingredient of a banana doesn't have much work to do!

Well done to UncleEbenezer who came up with the correct answer in only 26 minutes.

Cinelli

UncleEbenezer wrote:

scotia wrote:It was the parsnips that caught my eye - I don't usually strain my aging brain to the Games, Puzzles and Riddles.
Parsnips are not a Scottish vegetable, and we certainly would never have seen our mothers using them.

Interesting. My mother - who loved parsnips at least as much as I do - was from further north than you. I never really thought about whether the Scandies have them.

Neeps to a Jock are turnips rather than parsnips, yesno? Turnips I can take or leave, which puts them well below parsnips in my culinary repertoire. Though of course both these roots help take us through the season of very little fresh seasonal food. Maybe 6/7 parsnips to 1/7 turnips make good sense.

They definitely have them in Russia - the bloke who wrote Dr Zhivago was called Boris Parsnip- although the name may originate from his Sephardic roots (no pun intended)

cinelli wrote:Well done to UncleEbenezer who came up with the correct answer in only 26 minutes.

Cinelli

I'm not sure the 26 minutes is relevant. I expect I was just the first regular of this board to see your post, and (for a change) didn't have to think about it nor seek clarification.

Much more fun digressing on culinary matters.