Greens

June 19, 2024

You may recall when I built my hügelkultur beds I promised some of my “first fruits” for the use of our friends trailer to haul the compost and soil.  Even though technically the real first fruits were the radishes, they did not seem like an appropriate gesture.   I now have red beets that are ready to harvest, and they sounded more appropriate.  Melissa mentioned our friends’ garden was not planted until several weeks after mine and their tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) have yet to start producing.  I threw in some ripe San Marzano and smaller Grape tomatoes (both plum varieties) and added four large green bell peppers and two small yellow banana peppers (varieties of Capsicum annuum).  I plucked the beets and brought them inside to wash and remove the stems and bottom roots from the bulbus tuber I have always eaten.  As I was about to cut off the stems for disposal in my composter, I remembered we are in the South.  When I asked Melissa if people ate beet tops, she assured me they did.  I left the beet greens intact to let our friend decide what she wanted to do.

When I looked online, I found beetroot is the taproot portion of a beet plant (Beta vulgaris) known in North America as beets, while the vegetable is referred to as beetroot in British English.  Beets can be roasted or boiled, canned (whole or cut up), and are often pickled, spiced, or served in a sweet-and-sour sauce.  The domestication of beetroot can be traced to the emergence of a variant of the order of nucleotides on a DNA molecule (an allele) which enables biennial harvesting of leaves and taproot.  Beets were domesticated in the ancient Middle East, mostly for their greens, and were grown by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.  By the Roman era they were also thought to have been cultivated for their roots.  From the Middle Ages, beetroot was used to treat various illnesses, especially those relating to digestion and the blood.  It is one of several cultivated varieties of Beta vulgaris grown for their edible taproots and leaves (called beet greens).

Kemp Minifie is a top-level food editor, writer, and recipe developer for premier national food and travel magazines who spent 32 years writing about food for Gourmet magazine.  Minifie posted an article in 2019 about how the stems of beets are far more delicious than those of kale and collards.  Beet greens are also some of the most nutrient-rich greens, containing more antioxidants and other phytonutrients than the bulbous roots themselves.  The problem comes in trying to find them in order to cook a batch of greens.  Beet greens are now standard fare at (most) farmers’ markets, and beets are increasingly available with their greens in (some) supermarkets.  Minifie recalled her “shock and disdain” when she found her local grocery chopping the bushy greens from bunches of beets and, “no joke, stuffing them in the trash!”  Supermarkets are not alone in tossing the greens.  Farmers often lop off the tops at the customers’ request.  The hacked-off greens leave people wondering if you can even eat beet greens.

THOUGHTS:  Michael Twitty is a food historian who cooks the meals slaves would have eaten at places like Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s grand estate in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Root vegetables like turnips (Brassica rapa) and beets were often fed to livestock, while their leaves (greens) became a quintessentially Southern dish.  Our local market carries turnip (Brassica rapa) greens, but not the roots.  I have yet to find beet tops anywhere other than my garden.  My Central Plains upbringing taught me to eat the roots of both and throw away the tops.  I may have to cook up a “mess of greens” and find out what (or if) I have been missing.  Cultural preferences dictate what is good and proper to eat, and how to eat it.  I am even growing okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) for Melissa.  We will see if I dare go that far.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.