[Sca-cooks] Beets (was Eggplant)

[david friedman]

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