A Tale that Begins with a Beet ...

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.

The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip . . .

The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.

The beet was Rasputin’s favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.

In Europe there is grown widely a large beet they call the mangel-wurzel. Perhaps it is mangel-wurzel that we see in Rasputin. Certainly there is mangel-wurzel in the music of Wagner, although it is another composer whose name begins, B-e-e-t.

Of course, there are white beets, beets that ooze sugar water instead of blood, but it is the red beet with which we are concerned; the variety that blushes and swells like a hemorrhoid, a hemorrhoid for which there is no cure. (Actually, there is one remedy: commission a potter to make you a ceramic asshole-and when you aren’t sitting on it, you can use it as a bowl for borscht.)

An old Ukrainian proverb warns, “A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil.”

That is a risk we have to take.

Since we kicked off the blog with the most passionate of root vegetables, I thought I'd include this excerpt from the Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. It's a risk I'm willing to take.

Red Cabbage & Beet Root Borscht

It wasn’t until I was living on my own that I realized my Grandmother’s borscht wasn’t the only way to eat borscht. Equipped with this new knowledge, I still never doubted her borscht was the best borscht in town. When baba passed away I looked high and low for a consume-type borscht such as hers, but mostly I discovered there are many ways to make borscht. Perhaps it was the city I was living in, but finding beet borscht at a local restaurant was like finding a needle in a haystack.

Red cabbage, sometimes known as blue or red kraut, is a mature, spicy head of cabbage that lends a crisp texture over the green cabbage varieties. This is why red cabbage is frequently tossed into salads and slaw recipes. Baba’s beet borscht was a delicate consume-type soup made with beets, carrots, lemon and red cabbage. The slivers of blue kraut added a slight hint of crunchy texture to the smooth consistency of the beet consume.

Hearty cabbage borscht stuffed with beef or sausage has merit in the kitchen as well. It is an enjoyable comfort food in the cold winter months, but I never grew up on green cabbage borscht with meat quite the same as beet borscht. I was weaned on vegetarian beet borscht as a youngster, and I still love beets to this day. They are sweet, delicious and a wonderful tonic for the liver. Beet sugar comes from white beets, a main staple. The byproduct is beet molasses. If you get a chance to garden, make sure to throw in a few rows of beets.

Photograph by John Kernick

I know many recipe books say borscht is a term for all kinds of borscht in the kitchen; however, beet borscht, with its Russian (borschevik) and Polish (barszcz) roots, is what I ate while growing up, and not just anything was thrown into the recipe. Occasionally, folks also eat white borscht.

Traditionally, white borscht has kielbasa, horseradish and boiled egg - seemingly culturally different then white borscht varieties I’ve tasted in most restaurants. Likewise, traditional vegetarian beet borscht is served during Christmas, and is considered Kosher at Passover (without dairy) in Jewish tradition.

The other aspects, which make this borscht recipe ethnic rather than goulash, are the carefully selected ingredients of red cabbage, a bit of carrot, dill and lemon. Wine, in either red or white is also a lovely addition. Not everyone had wine in her frugal pantry back when, but lemon is still a necessary ingredient. Some prefer beer and I think it works all right. Beet borscht is truly one of those foods that taste better with a less-is-more approach.

Traditionally, borscht was prepared ahead of time. Borscht tastes better with time allowed for fermentation. A few days are necessary. Part of the reason is the soup develops tangy overtones, and the lemon helps this along. Other traditional condiments include a boiled potato placed in the soup before serving; hard-boiled eggs; sliced radish and crumbled bacon (unless Jewish of course). I simply love beet borscht it in its tasteful simplicity, so I don’t add much. Sometimes it has red cabbage, sometimes not. Mostly it just has thin slices of beet and carrot, or just consume.

Years later, after baba passed on, I started making my own borscht. The recipe stays true to form to her's with a few twists along the way. I hope you will also enjoy it.

Interested in the recipe? Check it out here.