LAMENT FOR A BEET
When I was a kid no one I knew ever ate beets. And if they did they probably didn’t like them very much. I don’t remember eating a beet until I graduated from college. I was living in New Paltz with my friend Sharon who was a vegetarian and a rather good cook for her age and the times. I didn’t really like them at first but then I hit a turning point and fell in love with them. I think this happens to a lot of people and beets. Sharon and I took a trip around the country later that year and stayed at some ashram/commune in Northern California for a couple of days with a friend of hers. You could stay and eat for free if you did some chores. We worked on the farm for a day literally shoveling shit and we were allowed to dine with the others at vegetarian buffet. I ate a lot of beets that night. For some reason we both got sick a lot on the road. A couple of hours into our trip out the next day I pulled over on the side of the road and threw them up. After that it took a while to fall back in love with them again. But I did.
Then I became a professional cook. Beets became a menu staple and turned up in many dishes. Once I really started to observe seasonality though I started to realize that while beets may be available much of the year they aren’t always good all of the year. They’re never as good as they are when they are first dug out of the ground in June. As the season progresses they may get overgrown, they may be watery and tasteless. In the scheme of things a beet is a reliable staple with a long season and is always of service in the kitchen.
It is my theory that when people eat beets they feel like they are being healthy. For some reason this seems to be true of the beet more than any other vegetable in the kingdom. Is it because of their earthy minerality? Is it because of their fantastic color? Is it because of their texture- dense and full but not starchy? Certainly the beet has a lot going for it but I wouldn’t think enough to cause an uproar. Though this is exactly what is happening.
Turns out that the presence or absence of a beet on one’s menu can cause a lot of emotional distress. Give the people a beet and they love you, take it away and they curse the day you were born. As a result, emotions are running high all around, whatever side of the service counter you’re on.
On our end we are so vexed by the constant inquiry as to which sandwich has the beets on it that we are threatening to pull them from the kitchen forever. On the other end customers are getting emotional and pulling their patronage over the absence of a pickled beet.
What can be said or done. The beet, ubiquitous yet misunderstood perhaps even misused in general is pitting us in battle with ourselves and our better nature.
The Beet Goes On drawings by Katy Porte
