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When Madison County gardener Bill Luchsinger was recovering from surgery last year, his partner, Karen Strohbeen, was trying to coax his appetite back with various favorite foods. “We tried everything — baking and braising, raw and seared. Nothing was working. Then we tried beets,” says Strohbeen.

“There was this dark red earthy attraction. For a while then I ate beets at every meal. There’s nothing more elemental,” recalls Luchsinger.

Since Neolithic times the blood-red beet has represented basic life forces as elemental as healing, sex, and freedom. Today’s beets derived from a wild species that was widely used medicinally. Ancient Romans began cultivating beetroot as a food crop and a sexual stimulant. In the Middle Ages beets became important to survival because they couldn’t be burned by marauding armies like most crops. After the discovery that they produced a sweetener comparable to cane sugar, beets, more than anything else, accelerated the end of legalized slavery.

Today beetroot is still championed as an elemental panacea — quite controversially in one case. South African Health Minister Manto Tshaabalala-Msimang, known as “Dr. Beetroot,” recommended beets as treatment for AIDS, in lieu of anti-retrovirus medicines. That’s not the only way beets are misunderstood. Beet greens are off the charts in their concentrations of vitamins K, A, and C and in magnesium. They are also quite rich in manganese, potassium, iron, vitamin E, and dietary fiber, and they have shown demonstrable results in preventing colon cancer and maintaining kidney health in diabetes patients. Yet this healthiest part of the beet is often thrown away today.

“I don’t understand why people would throw away the greens; they are the best part,” explains Dallas County gardener Khanh Hamilton, whose Sunstead Farm supplies some of greater Des Moines’ best restaurants with heirloom fruits and vegetables. Hamilton thinks beets have an overall acceptance problem in Iowa because of their history here as a survival food.

“They got people through winter. So many people here only know them as pickled beets. They don’t like pickled beets, so they think they don’t like beets at all. Many don’t even know you can eat the leaves or the root before it‘s been pickled,” she explains.

When the British blockaded France during the Napoleonic War, sugar-crazed French society pressured Napoleon into offering huge financial incentives for a cane sugar substitute. That led quickly to the development of economical methods for extracting sucrose from beets, the world‘s sweetest vegetable. By 1818 France was producing nine million pounds of pure crystal sugar from beets annually. Because sugarcane cultivation employed 90 per cent of all African slaves, beet sugar manufacturers began advertising “slave-free sugar” and winning market share. Sugar beet farming and processing grew all over Europe. In 1834 slaves were freed in the British Commonwealth. France, Denmark, and Holland followed Britain’s lead before the American Civil War.

Since then white beets have generally been grown to extract sugar, and colored beets for eating and pickling. After World War II, one variety of beet dominated American supermarkets — the Red Ace. In the 21st century, heirloom varieties have become increasingly popular.

Khanh’s Growing Tips

Beets are a not-so-hardy perennial that is grown as an annual in Iowa’s climate. Hamilton says the best time to plant is early spring.

“Then you will have them spring and summer and fall. I always have them at Thanksgiving and sometimes even later. They are happy until temperatures get down below the 20s. But you can plant as late as early fall, and you will have them in November,” she says.

“The yellow ones grow slower. The white ones don’t grow as well as the red, yellow, or pink ones. And the white ones tend to get woody; the others don’t do that. The upside, though, is that they have no color, so no mess to worry about. They can become sweeter, too, sometimes, but only in hot weather. In the colder weather of spring and fall, the red and Chioggia beets get much sweeter, the gold ones a bit more so; the white ones just get more bitter,” Hamilton advises.

Hamilton gardens naturally, so bugs are her biggest pest. “Bugs have to be hand-killed. The Asian beetle is the worst,” she says. “I still have bad dreams about them.”

Beet “seeds” are each actually a cluster of seeds and will produce more than one plant. Spacing is flexible, but 2 to 4 inches between seeds is ideal. Beets are sensitive to soil acidity, and a low soil pH stunts growth. Beets prefer 6.2 to 6.8 pH but will tolerate 6.0 to 7.5. Loose, well-drained, sandy loam soils rich in organic matter are ideal. Stones and debris hinder growth. If you have heavy soil, amend it well with compost prior to planting. Break up large clods and rake smooth prior to planting.

Harvest and Enjoy

Beet greens are handled like other greens — boiled or steamed as a hot vegetable or chilled after cooking and served as a salad with oil and vinegar or lemon juice. Beetroot can be served hot or cold, pickled, roasted, juiced, deep-fried, pulverized, or even raw. Peeled and steamed, boiled or baked, it can be eaten warm with butter or olive oil. Cooked and pickled, it can be served cold as a condiment. Peeled and shredded raw, it can be eaten in a salad. In Australia and New Zealand, pickled beetroot is a condiment for burgers. Classic Lebanese and Turkish cuisine usually features beets with yogurt. In Eastern Europe, beets are most popular as soup.

Hamilton says you should cut the stems an inch or two from the root and eat the greens as soon as possible. The root stores twice as long after the leaves have been cut, up to six months at 34 degrees. After washing the roots and wrapping them individually, skin on, in aluminum foil, you can bake them like a potato. Roast them in a 375º F oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until a knife glides easily in and out through the foil. Forty-five minutes of baking is equal to 30 minutes of boiling. If properly baked or boiled, the skin will slide right off and you’ll be left with colorful flesh firm enough to slice with a knife yet soft enough to eat like a peach.

Beets’ versatility makes them popular with creative chefs. Beetroot’s sweetness counters acidity in foods like oranges. Its earthy flavor balances the sharpness of pungent blue cheeses. Its color transforms foods. (Beets are usually used to makes lemonade pink.) Hamilton thinks the elemental taste of beets is best served simply — with a generous drizzle of your best olive oil, a tiny pinch of sea salt, and pepper, “plus a little something to kick up the acidity, like vinegar or lemon juice.”

Khanh’s Beets

4–6 each of Chioggia, Golden,
Albino White, and Detroit Dark Red
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon black ground pepper

Trim off the green tops one inch from root and place beets in a large pot, covered in water. Boil and reduce to simmer. Cook, covered, for 30 minutes until beets are just tender. Drain and allow to cool in order to handle.
Peel beets and cut into one-inch pieces; place in mixing bowl. Whisk together vinegar, oil, and pepper. Salt to taste. Pour over the beets. Serve at room temperature or refrigerated.

Tom Nieland’s “Vanya” Borscht

After 13-year-old Tom Nieland moved to Iowa, he remembered watching his grandmother make borscht in Russia. “I saw my grandma make borscht but I did not help her. I just watched her make it. I memorized this recipe so I can make the borscht on my own,” he says.
Nieland makes it frequently in Iowa, with foods he grows, because his adoptive family likes it so much. His mother encouraged him to enter it in the Iowa State Fair’s International Cooking contest, where it won the overall blue ribbon.

18 cups water
2 tablespoon oil
1 big onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, pressed
7 cups chopped potatoes
41/2 cups chopped beets
41/2 cups chopped cabbage
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
3 or 4 cubes vegetable bouillon
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1/4 cup chives, chopped

Garnish
sour cream
more dill
salt and pepper to taste

Boil water in a big pot. While water is boiling, cook onion and garlic in oil in a pan for 8 minutes or until golden brown. Add potatoes to the big pot and cook 15 minutes. Scrape off foam. Add beets and cabbage. Cook 15 minutes. Add onion and garlic, bay, salt, and bouillon and cook for 8 to 10 minutes. Add dill and chives at the end. Let sit 5 minutes. Serve with garnishes.

Varieties

There are two main garden varieties of beta vulgaris grown in Iowa: chard (Beta vulgaris-cicla), grown for leaves instead of roots, and beetroot (Beta vulgaris-vulgaris), for roots as well as leaves.

As their names suggest, chard cultivars — Burbank’s Rainbow, Crimson Giant, White Ribbed, Neon Lights, Rainbow, Ruby Red, Silverado, and Silver Beet Five Color — are bred for beauty as much as yield or taste. Large White Ribbed and Lucullus are prime candidates to become the first food grown in outer space because they are the highest-yielding plants requiring the least amount of vertical space. The Italian heirloom Argentata is prized by chefs for its mild, sweet flavor. Fordhook Giant works well in Iowa summer because of its heat resistance.

Popular Cultivars of Beetroot:

Albina Vereduna — a white variety
Albino — completely white roots
Bull’s Blood — dark leaves and sweet roots; its juice makes red food coloring
Burpee’s Golden — globe-shape orange roots turn yellow when cooked and don’t bleed
Chioggia — from Venice; their unique flesh has alternating red and white concentric rings
Cylindra — carrot-shape with dark red flesh; sweet and easy to peel
Detroit Dark Red — the American standard beet came from Canada; low in geosmin, which gives beets their earthy taste; good yields and good for storage
India Beet — not as sweet as Western beets
Lutz Green Leaf — red roots and green leaves; it’s the best beet for maintaining quality in storage
Red Ace — the principal variety found in supermarkets

Sources for Seed