On the night between Thursday and Friday, we had a downpour of perfect rain. It was strong, satiating, permeating and deep-reaching. This week the East Winds returned, drying things up, and the rest of the week is looking rather hot and dry. But hey, we are not ones to lose hope, and we keep remembering that it is indeed autumn – night comes early, the vegetable boxes abound with juicy roots, and the rain will eventually come. (Amen!)
One of the autumn hallmark vegetables is the red beet. We seeded him at the end of summer, and now ask him real nicely to trust us and peek out and grow, because autumn is in the horizon. Sure enough, he is one of the first to indicate that the vegetable ensemble in our boxes is transitioning from summer to winter. This season, the beet arrives at your home with its beautiful green leaves which soaked up sunrays for him, boosting his growth. So in honor of this great vegetable, we’ll step up the beat to the song of praise for Chubeza’s beets.
The first half of the annals of Beet History is actually the history of Swiss chard, its immediate relative and possibly even its older brother. Their common ancestor is probably the wild beet which grows along the Mediterranean area, whose leaves and stems were gathered as an early source of food. Naturally, the first farmers to deal with the beet attempted to cultivate a plant that yields large leaves and wide chubby stems, i.e., the Swiss chard. These farmers were probably Greeks and Romans living along the Mediterranean shore, and one hypothesis holds that the family received its name “beta” because its seed pod resembles the Greek letter Beta. The Hebrew word for beet, Selek, derives from the Arabic Salak.
The beet root became edible around the second or third century. The first beet root recipes for the Roman kitchen appeared around that time, some touting such praise as “better than cabbage!” In the beginning, only young wild beet roots were gathered and cooked, and only in the 16th century do documents appear attesting to the existence of a genetic mutation in the seeds that arrived from Italy to Germany and created: the beet root. To this day, one of the beet’s nicknames is “Roman beet.” Still, even during this time, it was a scarce vegetable in Europe. At the start, it was only used medically. The red beet was known to be beneficial in treating amebic or bacterial dysentery, internal wounds, nasal congestion and hepatitis. Only in the 19th century did its culinary virtues gain recognition.
The Chenopodiaceae family seeds deserve a few words as well: the beet or Swiss chard seed is in reality a collection of seeds tucked close to one another inside the dry fruit. Thus when seeded, it will grow a number of sprouts at once, meaning they must be thinned upon sprouting (some seed companies separate the collection of seeds and offer single seeds in order to allow accurate seeding and reduce the need to thin. But we go with nature…). Where there is no opportunity to thin the sprouts, the immediate results will be 10 cm-high plants whose leaves are ready to be cooked or placed in a salad. Usually the seeds sprout slowly, each at its own rhythm, over a long period of time, creating beets of various age and size. Thus, when we harvest them, we basically scan the entire bed and pull out the biggest roots, allowing more space for the remainder of the crop to grow.
In popular medicine called “like cures like” (similia similibus curentur), the belief is that plants represent their medicinal use by their shape, color or resemblance to body parts. The red beet is considered a remedy for treating blood circulation. Contrary to the purple color of other vegetables (cabbage, onion, eggplant, lettuce, pepper, basil, etc.), the purple in the beet is quite unique. Its origin is in the purple pigment category “betalain,” which contains strong antioxidant qualities and excellent capacities to battle cancer and heart disease. The beet also contains salicylic acid, an aspirin–like compound which is anti-inflammatory and contributes to the vitality of blood vessels and the heart. The beet is considered one of the “cleansing” vegetables which is highly beneficial for the liver, kidneys, and even swollen legs and constipation.
Unlike the internal cleansing qualities of the beet, the external experience is quite the contrary. The beet cells are unstable and they “leak” when you slice or peel the root. Cooking stabilizes the cells, which is why cooking the beet within its peel will reduce the staining. These pigments stabilize under acidic conditions, thus making pickling your beets a good (mess-preventing) idea. But beets color things other than your hands. We all know the red beet-dyed horseradish. Natural coloring extracted from beets is used as a popular food dye for pizza “tomato” sauce, pink lemonade or edible ink (the kind you might use to print on slices of meat).
Beets are usually round and red, but not exclusively. They come in many colors and shapes, ranging from striped to yellow, white, and purple. And you’re already acquainted with the elongated Chubeza beet alongside its roly-poly brother.
Despite the fact that it is a vegetable with high sugar value, and perhaps because of that fact (even higher than carrots and sweet corn), the beet is a good friend of weight watchers, containing only 30-40 calories. In addition, it is rich in folic acid, vitamin C and potassium.
Another relative is a white-root beet – the sugar beet. From the time that the Crusaders returned from their journeys, they craved the sweet flavor of the sugar they knew and loved. But sugar was an expensive commodity, imported to Europe via sea dwellers or roaming merchants. In 1747, German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf succeeded in extracting a small quantity of sugar from a beet root, then used as animal fodder. However, the process was highly labor-intensive, and the sugar content in beets was low. One of his students, Franz Achard, was more practical. He realized that if you want to extract more sugar from your beet, you just have to create sweeter beets. He then crossbred white beets and created the father of the modern sugar beet:
Tips:
- To store beets: trim any greens (the greens pump the root dry of its liquids, like the carrot or radish), allow three centimeters of the stem, and do not cut the root. Store the beet in the vegetable drawer of a sealed container and wrap the greens in a towel and plastic.
- In order to prevent “bleeding,” don’t cut or peel the beet prior to preparation. After cooking, steaming or baking, it will peel very easily.
- Adding some vinegar to the cooking water reduces the smell of cooking beets and allows them to keep their color. The cooking creates a clear beet stock which can be used for food coloring (like for rice, p’titim or couscous). Beets are naturally high in sodium, thus no salt need be added when cooking.
- When baking beets: to prevent staining, wrap in aluminum foil. It is best to add some kind of preferred seasoning, i.e., garlic, lemon slices, cumin or coriander seeds. The flavor penetrates and enriches the beet as it bakes.
- Beets can also be microwaved: pierce an unpeeled beet with a fork (to allow the steam to escape), place in a microwavable bowl, add a bit of water and heat uncovered for 4 minutes per beet, till soft.
- After the beets are prepared: to clean your hands of beet stains, rub with wet salt and lemon juice, then wash with soap and water.
- When our beets come with greens, don’t trash them! Use the greens like spinach or Swiss chard for a great semi-sweet flavor.
This week we send congratulations to Yochai, my dearest little brother who has been with Chubeza from the first day. He was our first delivery person and has since assumed every possible role: field worker, deliveries, office worker… what not, helping out wherever he could lend a hand. This week he is celebrating his fortieth birthday. Who would have believed! Mazal Tov, Jocha!
To Amit, our beloved delivery person still facing health issues, we send a bounty of wishes for good health and recovery.
Thank you for your patience with all the changes and delays in deliveries as we adjust our schedules.
Shavua Tov,
Alon, Bat Ami, Dror, Yochai and the entire Chubeza team
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WHAT’S IN THIS WEEK’S BOXES?
Monday: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce, beets/daikon, cucumbers, tomatoes, slice of pumpkin/Thai yard-long beans/okra, bell peppers, New Zealand spinach, parsley/coriander/dill, arugula/mizuna.
Large box, in addition: Carrots, kale/Swiss chard/totsoi, eggplant/zucchini
FRUIT BOXES: Bananas, apples, avocadoes. Small boxes: Oranges. Large boxes: Kiwi.
Wednesday: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce, beets/daikon/radish/eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, New Zealand spinach/totsoi, parsley/coriander/dill, arugula/mizuna, carrots/zucchini.
Large box, in addition: Slice of pumpkin, Thai yard-long beans/okra/fennel, kale/Swiss chard,
FRUIT BOXES: Oranges, plums. Small boxes: Bananas, avocadoes.. Large boxes: Kiwi, apples.