The beet goes on
Aphrodite was the goddess of love in Greek myth, and what special food did the myth-writers claim she favored to enhance her appeal? Beets! This is Greek myth so it has to be true.
When she would visit Mt. Olympus, she usually stayed in the cabana by the smaller pool out back. Bushels of beets of both colors were hauled up to her apartment – luscious white beets and wholesome black ones.
But even after myth people retired and real people took over, beets continued to be just black and white but popular because, for one reason, they had long been considered an aphrodisiac. They were dangled on brothel walls in Greece and Italy, plus Hippocrates used the leaves for treating wounds.
The ancestor of grocery store beets is called the sea beet, and it still grows wild along the Mediterranean coast. It had a skinny root and was not tasty at all, but along the way some empathic gardener (let’s call her Gilda) moved some to her garden a quarter mile from the Gulf of Corinth with the plan to make the leaves tastier by careful, consistent, scientific cross-pollinating and such stuff for many years.
Her plan for the leaves worked, and eventually somebody in Italy focused on pumping up the root to make a sweet bulbous ball of a root, so, thanks to Gilda and somebody in Italy we now have plump ball-shaped roots with edible leaves.
Not everyone loves beets, so why were they so popular in ancient times? Aristotle taught his students about beets. Hippocrates studied beets for medicinal reasons and extoled their healing virtues. Was it because beets were known to eliminate bad breath or was it because from personal experience Hippocrates knew the value of beet juice as a hangover cure? It’s full of essential minerals that counter nasty morning-after effects. Plus, there was the legendary aphrodisiac effect.
To repeat, aphrodisiac and hangover remedy… plus it cures dandruff!
Let’s be technical for a moment. There are four basic varieties of Beta vulgaris, and the most well-known variety is the typical grocery store beet. Gardeners in the mid-18th century began to breed red into their white beets until the dark red ones like we see today were the dominant variety. We also have golden and white beets which are a bit sweeter and less earthy than some red ones. One beet which originated in Chioggia, Italy, has concentric circles of red and white flesh.
Chard is a cultivar of beet bred for its large leaves and not for the root. Plant breeders in the past 30 years have introduced chard leaves in a rainbow assortment of colors.
Sugar beets are long, fat roots bred for making sugar. The world produces almost 300 million metric pounds of sugar beets a year, and beets account for 20 percent of the world’s sugar but as much as 60 percent domestically. Sugar beets came from selective breeding of forage beets.
Forage beets are known as mangels, and some farmers consider them prime cattle feed. They are large yellow or white roots which sometimes protrude two-thirds of their length above-ground. The Giant Yellow Eckendorf might reach 20 pounds, but harvested small it is still tasty like a Detroit Dark Red.
Forage beets, however, have more to offer. There is a sport in Europe called mangold hurling which is basically who can most accurately pitch a forage beet at a target forage beet called a Norman. There is a rulebook and an association.
Even better, thirsty entrepreneurs discovered that mangels and sugar beets make mighty fine vodka and rum. This would mean beets might cause the hangover that beets could cure.
Not only that, beets are nutritious and easy to grow. Plant a few seeds every other week until it’s too hot.