[Sca-cooks] Beets (was Eggplant)

[Huette von Ahrens]

Here is what Alan Davidson says about "beetroot"
in the Oxford Companion to Food:

Beetroot, one of four useful forms of the
versatile plant 'Beta vulgaris'.  The two which
provide vegetables for human consumption are the
red, globular roots of the beetroot itself, and
its leaves, and the stalks and leaves of chard.
Mangelwurzel, treated with beetroot in this
entry, is also cultivated for its edible root,
but used for animal fodder.  The fourth form is
sugar beet, whose roots are an important source
of sugar.

All these cultivated forms are descended from the
sea beet, 'B. maritima', a wild seashore plant
growing around the Mediterranean and Atlantic
coasts of Europe and N. Africa.  This has only a
small root, but its leaves and stems are 
sometimes eaten.  Early Greek writers such as
Theophrastus referred to the cultivation of this
plant.  By about 300 BC, there were varieties 
with edible roots.

Red beet, known as Roman beet, and yellow-rooted
varieties spread through Europe and Asia in
succeeding centuries.

In Europe, a yellow kind developed into fodder
beet.  In Germany, it was known as Mangoldwurzel
(beet root), which was corrupted to Mangelwurzel
(root for time of need) because it would only be
eaten when nothing else was available.

However, until well after medieval times, beet
roots remained long and relatively thin.  The
first mention of a swollen root seems to have 
been in a botanical work of the 1550s and what is
recognized as the prototype of the modern
beetroot, the 'Beta Roman' of Daleschamp, dates
back only to 1587.

In Britain the common beets were originally all
light in colour.  The red beet, when introduced 
in the 17th century, was described by Gerard
(1633) with some enthusiasm ('a most excellent 
and delicate sallad').  It soon found its way 
into the recipe books.  Evelyn (1699) declared
that cold slices of boiled red beetroot (such as
are still familiar to everyone in Britain) made 
'a grateful winter Sallet', while adding that it
was 'by French and Italians contriv'd into 
curious figures to adorn their Sallets".  The
anonymous but authoritative authors of 'Adam's
Luxury and Eve's Cookery'(1744) gave two recipes,
one for frying red beets as a garnish for carp 
and other fish, and the other 'To make the 
Crimson Biscuit of red Beet-roots'.

The scarlet colour of beetroot is due to the
combination of a purple pigment, betacyanin, and 
a yellow one, betaxanthin.  Yellow roots have
little of the former.  The pigments are much more
stable than most red plant colour, and are
sometimes extracted and used as edible food
colourings.

A cultivated beetroot may be as small as an 
orange or as large as a grapefruit.  Although 
red, globular varieties are dominant, there are
some with flattened tops, some with golden or 
even white flesh, and some shaped like thick
carrots.  Prolonged cooking makes the colour 
fade.  When whole beets are boiled, the skin is
left on to avoid damage to the cells and letting
the colour leak out.

Huette


--- david friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
wrote:
> "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 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
> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
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=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they 
shall never cease to be amused.

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