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Yankee Pier: Beet Me!
"The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent and not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious."
Tom Robbins, although melodramatic, is not so far from the truth. The beet is underrated, underutilized and rather misunderstood. Judging by its often rough-looking exterior, it’s hard to believe that it can be transformed through cooking, into something so buttery and soft. Its flavor is difficult to define or compare to other vegetables’, possessing sort of an earthy sweetness that can be hit or miss.
Its cultivation history stretches back well into the second millennium BC, somewhere in the Mediterranean, where it eventually spread into Babylonia, in 8th century BC, and eventually, China in 850 AD, hitting the Middle East and India along the way. Being a monochromatic two-part root vegetable (notably blacker and paler than today’s), ancient civilizations were unsure of how to utilize it, using the edible leafy tops as food and the root beneath as medicine, often to treat headaches and toothaches.
Through cultivation and evolution, the 16th century brought the sizeable rounded root and more color, much closer to the beet we enjoy today, but it took another 200 years before they gained any popularity as a food, becoming commercially important as a source of sucrose in Europe (providing an alternative to tropical sugar cane, which is often still utilized for table sugar to this day).
Fresh beets are grown and shipped throughout the year; but June through October is when they are at their sweetest and most tender. The most delectable paradigms are smaller and have sturdy, unwilted greens with unblemished bulbs, and if not necessarily used in the same dish, should still both be used as the greens provide a great deal of beta-carotene, vitamin C and calcium, and a spinach, chard-like flavor. The beetroot itself, however, is the prize—coming in many varieties, shapes and colors (including basic red, golden yellow, white and the Italian heirloom Chioggia, popularized by its striking pink and white rings), and easily cooked in a number of ways.
Although roasting is probably the most recognized (and easy) preparation, the beetroot can be boiled, baked, steamed or pickled; made into hot or cold soup, made into salads and stuffings, even used as a flavored food coloring for other dishes. Its brilliant color provides an additional challenge, however; that of retaining it. They can, in fact, bleed so it is important to cook them separately from other elements when possible, although adding some acidity (vinegar or lemon juice) and salting afterwards rather than before reduces this risk.
Ultimately, the beet is a diamond in the rough, and should be explored enthusiastically, in all its many possible preparations. Just try to do it before the season’s over!
Eat fresh, eat local, always!
