How do you eat that?

[digitS']

Our food all starts out as something growing and alive.

I remember arriving in this part of the world about 50 years ago and seeing these "factories," out in the farm country belching this horrible black smoke! It was a feeling something like when I returned to California and found the "modern dairy industry" looking the way it does

.

Anyway, these factories were for processing beets into sugar. I guess we are back to buying more cane sugar than growing sugar beets but I've toyed with the idea of growing sugar beets. NOT so I could foul the air with black smoke and contribute any more to what must be an unhealthy level of glucose in my blood stream. No, I just wondered what they taste like.

Really, I should have some idea. Baby beets are a very favorite vegetable and I will harvest & use them all the way down to just about the tiniest thinnings from the bed of beets ! They are very sweet. Of course, the roots just get sweeter and sweeter as they mature. About the only thing that can compare is parsnips. I'd just bet that parsnips would be a profitable source for sugar!

Steve
who understands that white sugar beets turn grey after cooking :/

 

[seedcorn]

Ok, I've got one. Garden huckleberries. Grew them as a kid. Got about 4' tall, loaded with dark berries. Before frost, too bitter to eat. After frost too bitter to eat. What did we do wrong? It would take all the sugar Steve doesn't want to sweeten them. But they were large, dark blue-black and loaded.

 

[digitS']

Should have grown

cherry tomatoes instead, Seedcorn.



digitS'

 

[Kassaundra]

I am allergic to gluten (wheat and other grains) so can't eat traditional pasta, I can buy the expensive gluten free stuff, however the closest store that sells GF things is over 50 miles one way, so I have discovered a good tasting healthy alternative to spaghetti noodles, I have a julliene vegetable peeler and slice a zuchinni into julliene strips and use it as my pasta, a quick nuke in the microwave and there you go, you can twirl w/ all the pasta eating people at the table. (you can completely julliene a very large zuch in less then 5 minutes easy by hand and the chickens love the innards) I tried the spaghetti squash and didn't like how fine and mush like the "noodles" were and how long it took to cook especially in the summer.




Also one of my favorite ways to make sweet potatoes is diced (like fried potatoes) w/ onions and green peppers all sauted together w/ a little butter or oil.

 

[Jared77]

Going to have to try parsnips and turnips now. The beets I've had were always in a Greek salad and never cared for them. What would I look for to find a sweeter beet?

Here in Michigan, in the "thumb" (yes its really called that because we are the mitten state) sugar beets are a BIG deal. They bring them in by the gravel truck, dump them in huge mounds and then they get processed. They actually ferment them to get the most sugar out of them. Smells something awful. I thought the ethanol plants were bad smelling but those fermented sugar beets you can smell before you ever hit town.

They process it though and make granulated white sugar. Around here we all buy Pioneer sugar (used to be Big Chief sugar but that's not P.C. anymore so its Pioneer sugar) to support a Michigan business. I don't live in the thumb area but I do duck hunt out that way occasionally when I have someone with a boat big enough to handle Saginaw Bay and needs someone with a good dog.

 

[seedcorn]

Before I'd use garden space with a crop I didn't like, I'd buy some. Try pickled beans-much sweeter.

Anyone else find it challenging to get parsnips up? Love them but not worth the aggravation.

 

[digitS']

Parsnip seed is supposed to be one of those with a very short viability. Fresh seed should be used every year, I suppose.

There are some parts of the world, like Great Britain . . . only Great Britain (?) . . . where parsnips must be a fairly big deal. Here in the US, I wonder if the seed is always fresh and viable.

Like carrot seeds, they are near the soil surface and take a long time to germinate in good circumstances. So, parsnip seeds are subject to misfortune like drying out and such.

Steve

 

[digitS']

Going to have to try parsnips and turnips now. The beets I've had were always in a Greek salad and never cared for them. What would I look for to find a sweeter beet? . . .

I've been thinking about this Jared and didn't want to draw too much immediate attention to your unfortunate location near the sugar beet factories . Yes, a good dog makes everything in life a little easier . .

I'm not sure about a sweeter beet. My great interest is in the very young plants. By the time the leaves are getting a little coarse, I'm losing interest in them. Mature beetroot is okay, my just-a-little-of-the-pickle tastes find the pickled beet acceptable, kind of a condiment is all I want.

I used to grow Early Wonder beets every year. They were even called "Early Wonder Tall Tops" to show that most of the emphasis was on the leaves. Lately, I've grown Red Ace because it has such good germination rates and does fine in my garden. I'm very focused on getting them thinned early just so that I can eat the thinnings . Marble-size is just about perfect for making harvest and table-use a little more worthwhile. I mean, I sometimes come in with no more than a fistful of dozens of tiny plants. Thinning is important at that size but the "haul" isn't too impressive. Chasing a marble-size beet around on the plate and twirling the leaves onto the fork is more satisfying.

I should note that DW won't eat beets, not of any size. She may have sat across the table from me and found my interest in beets a little disconcerting :/. I use a napkin and try not to make a mess . . . but, you know . Whatever the case, she may be weakening a little. Yes, it was her idea to grow Touchstone Golden beets again this year. I think she may have sampled them on the 3 or 4 occasions when we have have grown them before. I recommend them over the Burpee Gold if you'd like to have something for the table that isn't quite so colorful shall we say?

Steve

 

[hoodat]

Try raw coarsely grated beets with the juice of a lime and just a spoonfull or so of olive oil. The oil helps coat the beets. Leave in the refrigerator overnight. Oddly enough the tartness of the lime brings out the sweetness of the beets. I got the recipe from a Mexican neighbor.

 

[Kassaundra]

Try raw coarsely grated beets with the juice of a lime and just a spoonfull or so of olive oil. The oil helps coat the beets. Leave in the refrigerator overnight. Oddly enough the tartness of the lime brings out the sweetness of the beets. I got the recipe from a Mexican neighbor.

Does it get rid of the dirt taste???? No matter how much I scrub a beet, even the beets from the store they always taste like dirt to me, I eat and like other root veggies they don't taste like dirt so I don't think it is in my head.