Since antiquity the beetroot has been
credited with arousing, curing, purging, and cleansing all manner of
bodily conditions or ailments. Aphrodisiac; promoter of hair
regrowth; soother of earache, headache, intestinal pains and
chilblains; curer of hangovers, dandruff and garlic breath.
So much for all that. Suffice to say it
is a powerful little thing. And since today’s abiding paradigm of
food value is healthiness, recent focus has for the most part been on
the beetroot’s vitamins and minerals, its antioxidant and
anticarcinogenic properties, and even its alleged capacity to lower
high blood pressure. But I say again: so much for all that. I am not
denying the importance of health or medical history, I just want to
explore the beetroot for myself unmediated by statistics and
factoids.
Beetroot occupies an odd place in the
hearts and minds of human beings. Their tenacious red pigment is
obviously the central point of focus. It stains hands, chopping
boards and usually any other ingredient it touches. Because it gets
everywhere, it tends to be viewed as an irritating side effect. But
isn’t there also something deliciously menacing about the
incarnadine stain of a beetroot? Doesn’t a chopped beetroot provoke
bloody thoughts on the fringes of our minds? We may rationally know
we are chopping up a root vegetable, but we must also subliminally
register the visual similarity to the gory work of a butcher or
perhaps even more sinister instances of bloodied hands and knives. I
for one always have the faint sensation that I am slicing open a
heart when I chop a beetroot. In the indistinct basement chambers of
the mind, blood and beetroots have an inescapable partnership.
There is also the distinctive earthy
taste. A taste so earthy that the uninitiated beetroot eater might
reasonably ask if there has been some mistake in the preparation: if
some actual earth has not accidentally got into the vegetable itself.
In fact, geosmin is the organic
compound responsible not only for the earthy taste and aroma in
beetroot but also for that pleasant smell which occurs when rain
falls on dry earth.
But to return to the vegetable itself
and engage with it in person, instead of through lyrical hand-waving
postulations, I went and bought a fresh raw beetroot for myself. I
cleave towards minimalism, thrift and ease. Mainly just thrift and
ease.
Beetroot. A most magnificent thing.
Like an embarrassed potato, blushing, with a fancy outfit.
So I’m going to have a large beetroot
as a meal in itself. It’s actually even easier than baking a
potato. All you have to do is wash the beetroot, cut off most of the
stalk, leaving an inch or so on and then wrap it in kitchen foil and
put it in the oven for 45 minutes. As with potatoes you can alter the
oven time for the size – since mine is huge I’ve left it in for
an hour.
When you take it out of the first
you’ll want to remove the skin. This can be done with a kitchen
towel (to stop you burning your fingers). Apply a tiny bit of
pressure and it rubs off almost effortlessly.
This done, you can chop it up into
bite-size chunks and season it with salt, pepper and a little extra
virgin olive oil. With exciting visuals, a unique taste, a subtle
aroma and a pleasingly crunchy taste (quite unlike the mush of a
baked potato), I assure you that the baked beetroot is a consummate
experience all on its own.
Just make sure you don’t get a fright
when it stains both your liquid and solid excreta a deep red. There’s
no need to phone a doctor. It’s not blood. One really shouldn’t
end a beetroot rhapsody on such an unseemly theme so I shall now try
to redirect your thoughts with this picture of my friend Jack holding
slices of beetroot into the shape denoting how we should all feel
about eating them.
