SC - re: chard, AGAIN

[kylie walker]

Meliiora wrote:

>Lorix & Kylie,
>Hate to do this to you guys, but Silverbeet is NOT Swiss Chard.  Very
similar but not the same plant. We cannot buy Swiss Chard in Canberra but 
Drake has eaten it in England.   I've been trying to badger Drake into 
telling me exactly what the differences are.  I'll post when I hear further.

Now I'm really confused (and also can't believe we are having a lengthy 
discussion about something as unappetising as silverbeet - shades of 
childhood horrors!). I recieved a copy of "The New Oxford Book of Food 
Plants" last Friday (feel free everyone to tell me if this is known to be a 
dodgy reference; I've not come across it before) and it has this to say:

SEAKALE-BEET or CHARD (Beta Vulgaris). This is very closely aligned to 
spinach-beet and is used in the same way. It differs mainly in having a 
broad, white leaf-stalk, up to several centimetres across, which is often 
eaten as a seperate vegetable, while the green blade is used like spinach. 
Some cultivars have reddish-purple leaf-stalks and blades.

Unfortunately, they don't refer to silverbeet at all. The drawing of 
Sea-kale beet looks like silverbeet, but hard to tell from a drawing.

Completely OOP, but coincidentally, I was reading an old copy of an 
"alternative lifestyle" magazine last night, and it talked about using 
beetroot syrup instead of sugar in cakes and the like. And also watermelon 
syrup.

Kylie

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