When Madison County gardener Bill Luchsinger was recovering from surgery last year, his partner Karen Strohbeen was trying to coax his appetite back with various favorite foods.
“We tried everything, baking and braising, raw and seared. Nothing was working. Then we tried beets,” said Strohbeen.
“There was this dark red earthy attraction. For awhile then I ate beets every meal. There’s nothing more elemental,” recalled Luchsinger.
"Beets" by Bill Luchsinger
Since Neolithic times the blood red beet has represented basic life forces as elemental as healing, sex and freedom. Today’s beets derived from a wild species that was widely used medicinally. Ancient Romans began cultivating beetroot as a food crop and a sexual stimulant. In the Middle Ages, beets became important to survival because they couldn’t be burned by marauding armies like most crops. After the discovery that they produced a sweetener comparable to cane sugar, beets, more than anything else, accelerated the end of legalized slavery.
Today beetroot is still championed as an elemental pancea - quite controversially in one case. South African Health Minister Manto Tshaabalala-Msimang, known as “Dr. Beetroot,” recommended beets for treatment of AIDS, in lieu of anti-retroviral medicines. That’s not the only way beets are misunderstood. Beet greens are off the charts in their concentrations of vitamins K, A and C and in magnesium. They also are quite rich in manganese, potassium, iron, vitamin E and dietary fiber and they have shown demonstrable results in preventing colon cancer and maintaining kidney health in diabetes patients. Yet, this healthiest part of the beet is often thrown away today.
“I don’t understand why people would throw away the greens, they are the best part,” explained Dallas County gardener Khanh Hamilton, whose Sunstead Farm supplies some of greater Des Moines’ best restaurants with heirloom fruits and vegetables. Hamilton thinks beets have an overall acceptance problem in Iowa because of their history here as a survival food.
“They got people through winter. So many people here only know them as pickled beets. They don’t like pickled beets, so they think they don’t like beets at all. Many don’t even know you can eat the leaves, or the root before it‘s been pickled,” she said.
Ironically, that’s the same reason that Seed Savers Exchange founder and director Diane Ott Whealy thinks beets will be the next hot thing, along with other root vegetables, in heirloom foods.
“I think the next area of rediscovery will be root vegetables - carrots, turnips, beets, even parsnips. People are starting to look more toward root cellar foods in order to take more control over their food supplies,” she said.
Brief Bloody History
Excavated in Neolithic camp sites, wild beets are native to most of Eurasia from Britain to India. Ancient Greeks distinguished beet types based on color and Pliny was the first to leave a culinary, as well as medicinal, record of them. Romans became serious about them as a crop and distinguished types based on seasons. The growing of beets became an agricultural science in 13th century Muslim Spain.
When the British blockaded France during the Napoleonic War, sugar-crazed French society pressured Napoleon into offering huge financial incentives for a cane sugar substitute. That led quickly to the development of economical methods for extracting sucrose from beets, the world‘s sweetest vegetable. By 1818 France was producing nine million pounds of pure crystal sugar from beets annually. Because sugarcane cultivation employed ninety per cent of all African slaves, beet sugar manufacturers began advertising “Slave-free sugar” and winning market share. Sugar beet farming and processing grew all over Europe.
In 1834, slaves were freed in the British Commonwealth. France, Denmark and Holland followed Britain’s lead before the American Civil War.
Since then, white beets have generally been grown to extract sugar and colored beets for eating and pickling. After World War II, one variety of beet dominated American supermarkets - the Red Ace. In the 21st century, heirloom varieties have become increasingly popular.
Khanh’s Growing Tips
“Then you will have them Spring and Summer and Fall. I always have them at Thanksgiving and sometimes even later. They are happy until temperatures get down below the 20’s. But you can plant as late as early Fall, and you will have them in November. The yellow ones grow slower. The white ones don’t grow as well as the red, yellow or pink ones.
"And the white ones tend to get woody, the others don’t do that. The upside though is that they have no color, so no mess to worry about. They can become sweeter too sometimes but only in hot weather. In the colder weather of Spring and Fall, the red and Chioggia beets get much sweeter, the gold ones a bit more so, the white ones just get more bitter,” Hamilton advised.
Hamilton gardens naturally so bugs are her biggest pest.
“Bugs have to be hand killed. the Asian beetle is the worst. I still have bad dreams about them,” she said.
Beet seeds are actually a cluster of seeds and will produce more than one plant. Spacing is flexible, but 2"- 4" between seeds is ideal. Beets are sensitive to soil acidity and a low soil pH stunts growth. Beets prefer 6.2 - 6.8 pH but will tolerate 6.0 to 7.5. Loose, well-drained, sandy loam soils rich in organic matter are ideal. Stones and debris hinder growth. If you have heavy soil, amend it well with compost prior to planting. Break up large clods and rake smooth prior to planting.
Eating
Beet greens are handled like other greens - boiled or steamed as a hot vegetable or served cold after cooking as a salad with oil and vinegar or lemon juice. Beetroot can be served hot or cold, pickled, roasted, juiced, deep fried, pulverized or even raw. Peeled and steamed, boiled or baked, it can be eaten warm with butter or olive oil. Cooked and pickled, it can be served cold as a condiment. Peeled and shredded raw, it can be eaten in a salad.
In Australia and New Zealand, pickled beetroot is a condiment for burgers. Classic Lebanese and Turkish cuisine usually features beets with yogurt. In Eastern Europe, beets are most popular as soup.
Hamilton says you should cut the stems an inch or two from the root and eat the greens as soon as possible. The root stores twice as long after the leaves have been cut, up to six months at 34 degrees. After washing the roots and wrapping them individually, skin on, in aluminum foil, you can bake them like a potato. Roast them in a 375 degrees oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until a knife glides easily in and out through the foil. Forty five minutes of baking is equal to 30 minutes of boiling. If properly baked or boiled, the skin will slide right off and you'll be left with colorful flesh firm enough to slice with a knife yet soft enough to eat like a peach.
Beets’ versatility makes them popular with creative chefs. Beetroot’s sweetness counters acidity in foods like oranges. Its earthy flavor balances the sharpness of pungent blue cheeses. Its color transforms foods - beets are usually used to makes lemonade pink. Hamilton thinks the elemental taste of beets is best served simply - with a generous drizzle of your best olive oil, a tiny pinch of sea salt and pepper “plus a little something to kick up the acidity, like vinegar or lemon juice.”
Khanh’s Beets
4-6 each of Chioggia, Golden, Albino White and Detroit Dark Red
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon black ground pepper
Trim off the green tops one inch from root and place beets in a large pot, covered in water. Boil and reduce to simmer. Cook covered for 30 minutes until beets are just tender. Drain and allow to cool in order to handle.
Peel beets and cut into one inch pieces. Place in mixing bowl and whisk together vinegar, oil and pepper. Salt to taste.
Pour over the beets. Serve at room temperature or refrigerated.
Tom Nieland’ s “Vanya” Borsch
After thirteen year old Tom Nieland moved to Iowa, he remembered watching his grandmother make borsch in Russia.
“I saw my grandma make borsch but I did not help her I just watched her make it. I memorized this recipe so I can make the borsch on my own,” he said.
Nieland makes it frequently in Iowa, with foods he grows, because his adoptive family likes it so much. His mother encouraged him to enter it in the Iowa State Fair’s International Cooking contest where it won the overall blue ribbon.
4.5 cups cabbage, chopped
4.5 cups beets, chopped
7 cups potatoes, chopped
2 Tablespoon oil
1 big onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, pressedone fourth cup chopped
fresh dill one fourth cup chives, chopped
3 or 4 cubes vegetable bullion
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
2 bay leaves
18 cups water
Garnish
sour cream
more dill
salt and pepper to taste
Boil water in a big pot. While water is boiling, cook onions and garlic in oil in a pan for 8 minutes, or until golden brown. Add potatoes to the big pot and cook 15 minutes. Scrape off foam. Add beets and cabbage. Cook 15 minutes. Add onions and garlic, bay, salt and bullion and cook for 8 to 10 minutes. Add dill at the end. Let sit 5 minutes. Serve with garnishes.
Varieties
There are two main garden varieties of beta vulgaris grown in Iowa: chard
Hal Jasa of Phat Chef's serves pickled beets with wasabi As many names suggest, chard cultivars are bred for beauty as much as yield or taste - Burbank’s Rainbow, Crimson Giant, White Ribbed, Neon Lights, Rainbow, Ruby Red, Silverado and Silver Beet Five Color. Large White Ribbed and Lucullus are prime candidates to become the first food grown in outer space because they are the highest yielding plants requiring the least amount of vertical space. The Italian heirloom Argentata is prized by chefs for its mild sweet flavor. Fordhook Giant works well in Iowa summer because of its heat resistance.
Popular cultivars of beetroot include:
Albina Vereduna - a white variety
Albino - completely white rootsBull's Blood - dark leaves and sweet roots. Its juice makes red food coloring
Burpee's Golden - globe-shaped orange roots turn yellow when cooked and don’t bleed
Chioggia - from Venice, their unique flesh has alternating red and white concentric ringsCylindra - carrot-shaped with dark-red flesh; sweet and easy to peel
Detroit Dark Red - the American standard beet came from Canada; Low in geosmin, which gives beets their earthy taste; good yields and good for storage
India Beet - not as sweet as Western beets
Lutz Green Leaf - red roots and green leaves, it’s the best beet for maintaining quality in storage
Red Ace - the principal variety found in supermarkets
Popular baby beet cultivar’s include Pronto, Kestrel and Baby Ball.
Seed Companies
Burpee & Company
http://www.burpee.com/, 800-8881447
Johnny’s Selected Seeds
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/
207-437-4357
Seed Savers Exchange
http://www.seedsavers.org/
563-382-5990
Gourmet Seed International
http://www.gourmetseed.com/
575-398-6111
Thompson & Morgan
http://www.tmseeds.com/
800-274-7333
Renee’s Garden
http://www.reneesgarden.com/
888-880-7228
No comments:
Post a Comment