[Sca-cooks] Beets (was Eggplant)

[ekoogler1 at comcast.net]

So are you saying that the pie should be made with white beet roots, red beet roots or white or red greens?  I understand about the problems with secondary sources, but, at the time, it was all I had.  Not making excuses, mind you, but you go with what you have.  

According to the bibliography, Ms. Lorwin used the 1597 edition of the herbal.  It is, I believe, reasonable to think that the red variety was certainly known when Partridge wrote his recipe.  And, if that's the case, even though it may not have been a common thing, if he meant to use the root, it may well have been that it was the red beet...since, as you point out, the part of the white that was most commonly used was the greens.  

I'm not trying to keep the discussion going, but rather to make sure that the recipe I've used for years...and that folks here in Atlantia know and love, is accurate.  So far, I've not seen anything that makes me think that the way I've been doing it is wrong...or out of period.

Kiri
> I would take the quote from Gerard as implying that people aren't 
> using the roots, or not very much--it sounds as though he is saying 
> that they should be. "... who no doubt when ... will make thereof."
> 
> Gerard's Herbal was first published in 1597, with various later 
> editions; do you know which version that passage first appeared in? 
> It's in the 1633 edition--which at least suggests that eating the 
> root was still uncommon then, although it might have just been left 
> in through inertia.
> 
> Checking some webbed extracts from the 1633 edition, we have:
> 
> "Beta alba. White Beets.
> ...the white Beete is a cold and moist pot-herbe...Being eaten when 
> it is boyled, it quickly descendeth... especially being taken with 
> the broth wherein it is sodden..."
> 
> Beta rubra, Beta rubra Romana. Red Beets, Red Roman Beets.
> 
> ...The great and beautiful Beet last described may be vsed in winter 
> for a salad herbe, with vinegar, oyle, and salt, and is not onely 
> pleasant to the taste, but also delightfull to the eye.
> 
> The greater red Beet or Roman Beet, boyled and eaten with oyle, 
> vineger and pepper, is a most excellent and delicate sallad: but what 
> might be made of the red and beautifull root ...
> 
> I take this to mean that white beets were used exclusively as beet 
> greens, red beets primarily, and Gerard is urging that the root ought 
> to be eaten.
> 
> Is there any reason to assume the recipe is calling for red beets? It 
> looks from Anne Wilson's comments as though they were a novelty in 
> Elizabethan times--and she has a reference to Digby referring to 
> beets where they are pretty clearly the greens.
> 
> A web search turned up this--from the Floreligium:
> 
> Take Beets, chop them small, and put to them grated bread and cheese,
> and mingle them wel in the chopping, take a few Corrans, and a dish of
> sweet Butter, & melt it then stir al these in the Butter, together with
> three yolks of Eggs, Synamon, ginger, and sugar, and make your Tart as
> large as you will, and fill it with the stuff, bake it and serve it in.
> 	--John Partridge, The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin
> 
> That's from Dining with William Shakespeare, by Madge Lorwin. 
> Partridge is 1594--i.e. a little before the earliest edition of 
> Gerard. There is nothing there that implies the roots are being 
> used--and if the red beets are new, and Gerard is trying to persuade 
> people to use the roots forty years later, there should be if that's 
> what is intended.
> 
> The dangers of relying on secondary sources.
> -- 
> David/Cariadoc