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Beet Root
THE Beet of our kitchen gardens is of the Goosefoot tribe, and derived from the Sea Beet, which grows plentifully about English coasts. Its name originated through a fancied resemblance borne by its seed vessels, when swollen with seed, to the Greek letter B. Therefore, "The Greeks gave its name to the Beet from their alphabet's second letter' As an Attic teacher would write the same on wax with a sharp stiletto.', The Mangel Wurzel, also a variety of Beet, means literally, "Scarcity root."
Occasionally the leaves of the Sea Beet (which is slenderrooted) are cooked as "greens" for the table. Beet root contains a large amount of cane sugar, especially in the large white "Sugar beet," from the roots of which plant Beet-root sugar is extensively manufactured in France, Germany, and some other countries. The ordinary red garden Beet root contains nearly as much sugar as the Sugar beet; but in the process of cooking for table, a considerable quantity of this soluble sugar is lost, so that the garden Beet when boiled does not contain more sugar than three per cent; but its root is richer in cellulose than most other tubers. An addition of vinegar to slices of red Beet root softens the fibrous tissue, and increases its digestibility; but it does not interfere with the cane sugar which is abundantly present. To persons of a certain age Beet root boiled is very indigestible, or rather they do not digest it at all. It is not the sugar pulp which thus proves a difficulty, but the porous network which resists the action of the gastric juice. Therefore, when the root is reduced to a purée, almost any person may eat it, though in the process of cooking much of the sugar is sacrificed.
This root is helpful against some derangements of the womb's functions; whilst the white Beet is laxative, and will stimulate an increased flow of urine. Though Beet-root sugar, and cane sugar, are chemically identical when pure (which they never are), yet commercially, and for culinary flavour, they differ in two important respects. First, the Beet sugar contains more extractives in the form of alkaline carbonates, many of these having a powerful, and characteristic taste which cannot be dispelled; and therefore it is that an infusion of tea, when sweetened with beet sugar containing such alkaline carbonates, is not in character, and flavour the same beverage as that made with a sugar free from this admixture. A like effect is found in coffee, and in several other sweetened drinks. Next, Beet-root molasses contains more extractives than cane molasses, and its ash gives more of the oxides of soda and potash; so that cane sugar is on the whole a superior article to Beet-root sugar.
The Beet is characterized by a large percentage of sugar, mucilage, starch, and alkaline salts, especially of soda. A pleasant wine may be made from the roots; and the juice thereof when applied to the skin of the face is an excellent cosmetic. Sometimes the root bears the name of Betterave. Baked beets are capital for the table. A Russian dinner generally begins with Bortch, which is the national soup, and the Russian is as proud of it as is the Englishman of roast beef. This is of a deep red colour, being made from Beet root, but having a "stock of treasures hidden in its depths; onions, perhaps, are swimming on the top, and beneath the surface tomatoes are not improbably concealed, with-at the bottom-a chop, succulent as a young chicken; while as an additional zest the waiter brings a tureen which contains sour cream, to be eaten with the soup." It is quite possible to make a whole meal of "bortch" soup, with vegetables, and meat in it; or this is therefore much liked as a first course at dinner on a Saint's day, after a rigorous fast. For Bortch soup "Bake four beets; peel, slice, and put into good stock; boil for half an hour. Rub down three raw beets with about one tablespoonful of vinegar, and a little water; pass all through a sieve; when ready to serve add one glass of Madeira wine, with cayenne, and salt to taste."
The bulk of this entry is botanical and dietary commentary; the working recipe is the Bortch at the very end, given in the telegraphic style of a period cookery note. It assumes a stocked kitchen and leaves out quantities a modern cook expects.
- The hinge: raw beet at the finishThe sieved raw beet with vinegar is what keeps the soup crimson rather than brownish-mauve. Add it near the end and do not let the pot boil hard afterwards, or the pigment (betanin) breaks down and the colour goes dull.
- Quantities the original omitsNo stock volume is given. Four baked beets plus three raw ones suit roughly 2 to 2.5 litres of beef or veal stock, serving six to eight as a first course. Season only after the Madeira goes in, since reduced stock can already be salty.
- "Bake four beets"Whole unpeeled beets, wrapped or on a tray, at 400F for 45 to 75 minutes depending on size, until a knife slides in easily. The skins slip off under cold water. Baking rather than boiling is the point here: it concentrates the sugar instead of leaching it into the water, which the essay itself complains about.
- "Rub down three raw beets"Grate them fine and work them with the vinegar and water, then press through a sieve. A food processor and a fine strainer do the same job in a minute. Keep the strained liquid; the spent pulp can go.
- A glass of MadeiraA period wine glass is about 2 to 3 fl oz. Use a medium-dry Madeira such as Verdelho; a very sweet Malmsey will push the soup sugary, given how much sugar the beets already carry.
- The chop and the tomatoesThe descriptive passage above the recipe mentions onions, tomatoes and a chop, but the instructions do not. If you want the fuller version, the meat should be cooked in the stock beforehand and returned in pieces; the recipe as written is essentially a plain beet broth.
- Sour creamServe it at the table rather than stirring it into the hot pot. Full-fat sour cream or smetana holds; low-fat versions curdle in hot acidic liquid.
- Treat the medical claims as period writingThe remarks on the womb's functions, laxative white beet and beet juice as a face cosmetic are 1900s dietetics, not current advice. The pink urine some people notice after eating beets (beeturia) is harmless and unrelated to any of it.
This comes from W. T. Fernie's Meals Medicinal, an Edwardian compendium that treated the kitchen garden as a dispensary and gave each vegetable a short essay with a recipe attached. The etymology Fernie repeats, that Greek writers named the beet for the shape of its seed vessel resembling a beta, is a traditional derivation rather than a settled one. His asides on beet sugar reflect a live commercial argument of the day: European beet sugar had grown from a Napoleonic-era substitute for blockaded cane into a major industry in France and Germany, and British writers were often keen to insist that cane remained the superior article. The borscht itself he presents as an exotic import, quoting a traveller's description of the Russian table; the soup's roots are Ukrainian and Polish, and the name is generally traced to an older sour soup made from fermented hogweed stems, with beets displacing the original plant over time.