[Sca-cooks] Beets (was Eggplant)

[ekoogler1 at comcast.net]

I just checked the version in Madge Lorwin's book, and it also says to "chop the beets".  I have always made the pie using the roots, as she indicates in her redaction.  She bases hers on statements from Gerard's "Herbal".  The first part, which she quotes, acknowledges the use of the leaves in salads, even giving a recipe for doing so.  Then she quotes him as saying, "But what might be made of the red and beautiful root (which is to be preferred before the leaves, as well in beautie as in goodness) I refer unto the curious and cunning cooke, who no doubt when hee had the view there, and is assured that it is both good and wholesome, will make thereof many and divers dishes, both faire and good."  Lorwin goes on to state, "And beets were used in mnay ways by cooks, including beet-root salads, both hot and cold."

I assume, therefore, that she based her use of the root on the quotation from Gerard...and the fact that the flavors of cheese, currants, etc. go especially well with the root.  I have a copy of "To the Queen's Taste", but never used that one, as I felt that the redaction in Lorwin's book is better.  This because I first made the pies before I learned to do my own redactions.  However, I suspect I would have come up with something quite similar had I done the redaction myself.

Kiri
> Ranvaig wrote:
> 
> >I was browsing the Florilegium and found this on beets:
> >
> >http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-VEGETABLES/vegetables-msg.html
> >>Curiously the red beet with a bulbous
> >>root was new to Gerard; common beets were white or
> >>yellow and eaten as greens. (Even in the 16th, beets
> >>often were called by their French name.)
> >>Alysoun
> >
> >Were they just new to England, but known in France and
> >elsewhere, or a new variety?
> >
> >Do Lumdardy tarts use red beets or white/yellow beets? It doesn't 
> >sound like it means to use the greens.
> 
> and Kiri replied:
> 
> >Just read the end of your message.  The roots themelves are 
> >used...it would be kind of hard to >grate leaves...I think 
> >directions for that would be to chop finely.  No indication is given 
> >for the color >of the beet but, as red is what is available to me, I 
> >use red.
> 
> The original recipe, as quoted by Maire from _To the Queen's Taste_, was:
> 
> "How to make Lumbardy Tarts.  Take beets, chop them small, and to 
> them put grated bread and cheese, and mingle them wel in the 
> chopping.  Take a few corrans, and a dishe of sweet butter, and melt 
> it.  Ther stir al these in the butter, together with three yolkes of 
> egges, sinamon, ginger, and sugar, and make your tart as large as you 
> will, and fill it with the stuffe, bake it, and serve it in."
> 
> Looking at this, I actually do assume it means beet greens. In this 
> version of the recipe, at least (I haven't seen the _Dining with 
> William Shakespeare_ version), it is the bread and cheese that are 
> grated, not the beets, which are just being chopped small. Le 
> Menagier de Paris (late 14th c., so a good deal earlier), talking 
> about beets, clearly means the greens; and the lumdardy tarts recipe 
> reminds me of a contemporary (i.e. late period) English recipe for 
> spinach, so we know they did things similar to this with greens:
> 
> An Excellent Boiled Salad (English Huswife book 2, p.40):
> 
> To make an excellent compound boil'd Sallat: take of Spinage well 
> washt two or three handfuls, and put it into faire water and boile it 
> till it bee exceeding soft and tender as pappe; then put it into a 
> Cullander and draine the water from it, which done, with the backside 
> of your Chopping-knife chop it and bruise it as small as may bee: 
> then put it into a Pipkin with a good lump of sweet butter and boile 
> it over again; then take a good handfull of Currants cleane washt and 
> put to it, and stirre them well together, then put to as much Vinegar 
> as will make it reasonable tart, and then with sugar season it 
> according to the taste of the Master of the house, and so serve it 
> upon sippets.
> ------
> So my guess is that it really is greens, not beetroot.
> 
> Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook
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