October 22, 2021 • 45 mins
This versatile vegetable is used for its tasty taproot, leafy greens, and sugar production capacity. Anney and Lauren dig into the earthy history and sweet science of beets.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to favor Protection of iHeart Radio. I'm
Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have
an episode for you about beats. Beats. Where did this
idea come from? I thought at first it might be
a Halloween Yeah, the vaguely Halloween relatable since we did
borished and um, I realized that we hadn't done beats yet.
(00:29):
I was like, well, we have to do beats. And
I kind of had it percolating in my brain and
then I was yeah, I was thinking about, um, the
last time that I bothered to peel a beat, which
I don't usually do because I don't mind the kind
of earthiness that you get from a from an unpeeled beat. Um,
and as long as you wash them good, it's all fine. Um.
But so the last time I peeled a beat, it
(00:51):
was a big beat, and I just wound up with
this large and it was I felt like, I felt like,
I don't know, like like some kind of version of
Lady McBee, Like I was sitting there with like these
like blood covered hands and like this bloody heart shaped thing,
and I was just like, yeah, yeah, that's true. I
can see that. I can envision it perfectly, Lauren. Yeah, yeah,
(01:14):
I also love that. I just called Lady McBeth Lady McBee.
I'm not even liked it too. I'm not even really
I'm like theater adjacent anyway. It's it's fine. This is
not a theater I'm in. I'm in my house. Isn't
all of life, it's all stage. We are merely players.
It's true, it's true. I really appreciated it, but I
(01:37):
thought it was very funny, like you're on first name basis. Yeah, yeah,
um well I always think of the office less uh,
theatrical less murder. Yeah, well but yeah, Dwight shrewd tesz
(01:59):
a beat from Beats Bearstica. Um My, my dad really
really liked beats. I like them too, but yeah, that
that die. I've only like used them a couple of times.
It just gets everywhere. Yeah, I get some golden beats, dude,
Like they they're so I mean, like they're still very
brightly colored, but they will not die. Everything that bright red.
(02:22):
It's a lot more skin toned, so it's a lot
easier to deal with. I don't know why, but then
I'm like, what if all my skin is just becomes
golden beet skin to ask, um, I feel like they
I don't see them in the stores often, but I
will take another another look. Yeah, yeah, take a gander.
(02:46):
Um when my I do love a beat. Um. When
when my roommate and I grill out, we usually get
a bunch of beets and uh and slice them up
kind of thin and grill them so that they're just
real real crispy and and uh and sweet and little
like beat chips. Almost so good, so good. Yeah that
(03:09):
sounds so good. Well, I will say beats tend to
have like their lovers and their haters. And my ex
boyfriend was a hater. He don spised beats like it
was one of those things like you can regularly depend
on someone to go on a brand if you bring something. Okay,
(03:30):
that much better? Okay. He despised him. And one time
we went to this fancy restaurant in l A that
was known for vegetarian dishes, and he excitedly went on
and on and on about how he wanted to order
the beef tar tar um, and I, being the terrible
(03:52):
person that I am, did not correct him because it
was in fact beat tuh huh, and it wasn't until
he ordered it and the waitress wrote it down. I
think she was like, maybe he misspoke or maybe I misheard,
and then she was about to walk away, and I
was like, no, no, no no, no, okay, wait, can't order this.
(04:12):
And I don't understand where we broke up. Well, you
didn't break up, like at the table right there, right,
So it was a silent ride home. It could have
been for any number of reasons. But goodness, um, well
yeah you stopped. You stopped it before the plate hit
the table. I feel like you deserved points for that.
(04:34):
And I wanted the beat O I knew he would
have been. That sounds that sounds delicious, like you can
smoke a beat and it's tasty, like get some I
don't know, maybe some like goat cheese involved on the
plate or something. I bet it was delicious. I bet
regrets should have like I hadn't no idea either, but
(05:01):
this is so tasty. Wow, I guess I will eat it.
Then I will say. I feel like we've talked about
this in several past episodes, this one researching it, the
punds just an ocean of I I don't think I
(05:22):
opened a single article that aside from the like really
academic journal ones that I read, but every other piece
that I read had like beat it or the beat
goes on in there somewhere drop. Oh yeah, Yeah, there
was one I came across that I thought was really
(05:42):
creative and I've forgotten it already. But I'm sure as
I'm like, you know, stewing on what the title of
the episode will be, maybe I will come up with
it myself. I hope, So, I hope. So I want
to hear it. Yes, we'll have to see. We'll have
to see. Um and yes, as Lauren said, you can
see are recent episode on Borish. I feel like we've
done a lot of things that are kind of related,
(06:04):
but that's probably the most directly related. Yeah, the two
episodes on sugar as well. Yes, but I guess this
brings us too hawk questions. Beats what are they? Well?
Beats also sometimes called beat roots, are a sort of
(06:27):
sugar storage device for this type of flowering plant that
we've we've we've decided to just go on and eat
this as a vegetable sometimes, um M, yeah, sugar storage device.
It's very menacing, but that's what we've said. I watch
a lot of horror movies. Is there anything you don't
(06:50):
find menacing? Annie, Honestly, it's hard, like pretty much everything
I'm like, But what if uh, you know, beats beats, Uh,
they're they're they're they're usually bulbous um kind of half stem,
half root sort of things, sometimes called tap roots um.
And they grow under ground and store up water and
(07:11):
sugars and nutrients that are meant to help a plant
grow one year and then survive a cold winter and
then regrow and flour and produce seeds the next year. Um.
But generally beats do not get a chance to do
that because we dig them up and eat them that
first year. Impatient, impatient. Oh, we don't want them for
the flowers, We want them for the delicious sugar storage devices. Um.
(07:39):
These uh, these tap roots come in a range of
brilliant colors, from yellow to gold to red to violet. Um.
The roots have rings inside them, like a tree, which
you can see if you slice them. Unlike trees, though,
each ring is alive and actively growing, with the capacity
to transmit both water and sugar through out the plant.
(08:01):
Trees and other woody stems tend to only grow new
cells and carry sugars in their outer layers. Yeah. Um.
Researchers think that this makes beats really good at storing sugar,
like particularly good. Again, we're coming back to sugar, it's all,
it's all going to come around. The botanical name is
Beta vulgaris, and the bright colors the beats come in. Oh,
(08:24):
those colors. To this group of pigments that are named
for beats, they're called beta lanes. They're unique to this,
to this wide taxonomical order that beats are in, along
with stuff like rhubarb and flower and cactus. Other red
and purple pigments, say like in tomatoes or radishes, are
from this whole other group called um antho syn ins
and um. This is why beat juice is so like
(08:46):
pervasively colorful, because these pigments stay stable across a range
of pH levels, unlike antho syn ins. So um. So yeah,
Like if you are trying to die frosting, Um, if
you added like a blueberry juice to the frosting, it
would just go gray. But if you add beat juice,
it will stay in nice pink. Yeah. How interesting? Yeah
(09:09):
yeah yeah um yeah if you if you, I mean,
it might make the frosting taste a little tiny bit
like beet, but you know, um, yeah, So the roots
can be um used in any number of ways. They
can be cooked, roasted or boiled or steamed or sauteed
or grilled a whole or sliced as a side dish,
alone or with other root vegetables, served hot or cold,
(09:30):
added to soups and stews. You can pickle a beat,
you can juice a beat. Um. I mean you can
just like eat them raw, maybe like grated into a
salad or or a slaw. Perhaps. Um. I've read that
in Australia and New Zealand, sliced beets are served as
like a sandwich topping. Huh, and I have I don't
think I've ever encountered that, and now I am so
(09:51):
now I want that. I want that right now. I
think I've only had the I can't remember, might have
been in one of those places, but I feel like
I've had that when you have avoca to oh huh
on a sandwich and sometimes they'll put beats on top.
But okay, who knows, let us listeners. Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah for sure, um and yeah. The roots are sweet
(10:15):
and earthy and kind of mild and can have a
range of other sort of like side flavors from kind
of like clove like to a little bit um a
stringent read like puckery um raw their crunchy cooked. They
can get like buttery tender, so good. I don't think
I've ever had a cooked beat. I've just had like
(10:35):
in salads or yeah, like a roasted bead is so good.
I know, yeah, you convinced me right away, right off
the top. I want oh, okay, all right, um cool,
I'm not going to threaten to come to your house
with food again. But but like the next time we
(10:57):
have to get together, there's going to be some cooked
beats involved in everyone else and in our D and
D group is going to be very confused. Um, but
it's going to be great. It's going to be fantastic. Uh.
And yet beat beat roots do taste a little bit
like dirt, And it's because of the specific compound called geosman,
(11:17):
which actually means dirt smell um. And it's one of
the compounds that contributes to like like the lovely fresh,
earthy smell after a rain. Um. It is produced in
beats and also by a number of microorganisms that live
in dirt. Uh. Humans are pretty sensitive to it because
(11:38):
it can indicate um like microbial contamination in water, which
is a useful thing to be able to detect. Uh.
It Also, it also is one of the compounds um
that shows up in wine if you've got cork taint.
So yeah, I guess also useful to be able to
(11:59):
detect in what I guess? So yeah yeah um. And
if you dislike it, that's probably why you dislike beats,
like I've I've read. I've read that that's like a
leading like like a contributing factor to dislike of beats. Um.
But um, adding acid to a beat will will reduce
(12:23):
the the odor of us. So yeah, there you go.
There are options, There are options. Um. The greens are
also eaten when they're young. They're good for salads. They
taste kind of like spinach, which is um botanically related,
and when the leaves are more mature, they're usually cooked
as you would with any kind of slightly tougher green.
(12:45):
Shard is a variety of beat that is grown for
its leaves instead of its roots, which I did not
know until today either, and that confused me, and I
was like, do I have to go back and research
everything again? Because that might change all of this, all
of this. Yeah, I think that's I think that's a
(13:06):
different episode. But it does explain why, um, why the ribs,
the central ribs of shard leaves come in the same
colors that beat roots do. Yes, yes, shard comes with
that warning label cooked with it once because I'm like,
oh no, oh, no, oh, dear. The roots of some
(13:28):
varieties of beats are grown specifically to produce sugar, to
like refine sugar out of um. And these are kind
of long white beats called sugar beets. Makes sense. They
look sort of like a like a carrot that Bnicula
just drained all of the life force out of. See
(13:48):
you didn't see listeners when I just gotta horrified. Look.
Oh no, the poor carrot. Oh whatever ever, that's it's fine,
it's fine. I don't care about carrots. Not. I don't
think the carrot cares. I more proof about your vampireism.
(14:15):
We heard you've got like a little notebook somewhere. You're
over here taken notes. You're like, she associates with Bunicula,
doesn't care about carrots. Yeah, to make sugar from sugar beet. Um.
Usually the beats are either juiced um, and then that's processed,
(14:36):
or that they might be pulped into dry flakes or
granules and then and then that will be transported and
processed to extract the sugar. Beats are also used as
animal feed um and uh. Beat extracts are used in
the production of everything from dies to cosmetics, to nutritional
supplements to biofuels. Lots of beat industry out there, industrious beat.
(15:01):
M Well what about the nutrition. Beats are pretty good
for you, lots of fiber, good spread of micronutrients. Um.
Beats will help fill you up, but to keep you going,
pair with a with some fat and some protein. When
you eat them raw including just like just like straight
beat juice. Um, they can aggravate sensitive guts so um.
(15:24):
So if that's an issue for you, then just cook
them cooking first. Yeah. Um uh. The rent to purple
ones can tint your urine and your stools. Um. And
apparently this is common in about fourteen percent of the
population here in the United States. Yes, there are studies
about it. Lauren, Laura, Lauren always finn talk about pooping. Look,
(15:54):
there's uh it's part of the digestive system. Okay, I'm
not mad about it. I'm a pressed to be honest. Well, look,
I'm I'm not the only person fascinated by this. Okay,
there there's actually a medical term for having beat colored
(16:17):
and poop and it is baccheria victoria. I I looked
for a pronunciation. Wow, the Internet really let us down.
It did, it did? Thanks for nothing, the Internet. Uh yeah, yeah,
(16:39):
however you pronounce it, it's nothing to be concerned about. Um. Uh,
it can be very startling, but yeah, it can sometimes
indicate an iron deficiency I've read. But but yeah, like
if I guess, if you eat like a lot of
beats and it happens like every time you do, then
you know, like try to get into a maybe called
(17:00):
a doctor and maybe get some blood work done. See
see if iron deficiency is a thing. I'm trying to
envision a circumstance, right, A lot of beats and I
was like, you know what, I gotta go to the doctor,
which you should. It's just so outside of like sure possibility,
what the future holds for me? Um, you could go
(17:24):
on a very serious borsched kick. Okay, I could I
could anytime now. Um, all that all out aside beats
and their juice and their extracts are under investigation for
all kinds of potentially beneficial properties UM, including helping prevent
cardiovascular disease and cancer. UM. On kind of smaller levels,
(17:47):
they've they're they're the extracts of beats have been found
to have all kinds of potentially exciting properties antioxidant, um,
anti diabetic. The list goes on um. But as always,
before consuming a medicinal amount of anything, consulted. Doctor who
is not us because bodies are complicated. Indeed, markof that
(18:14):
bingo guard. There you go, there you go. Oh, yes,
we are definitely not doctors and certainly not medical doctor.
Oh yeah, that's not that's the furthest furthest type of
doctor away from any kind of doctorate that I could
possibly get. Right, I'm like, imagine doctor strange, but on
(18:37):
one level, one side of the spectrum, he was a doctor,
but on the other side he's just strange. I'm on
that strange. You're on the strange side. Yeah, so much
the medical doctor, hard hard same. I feel like that
explains everything, that clarifies it. We do have a few
(18:58):
numbers for you. We do, we do, yes, And actually
this first one kind of surprised me. Um. Around of
the world's sugar comes from beats. Some resources suggest that
sugar beats account for over of domestic U s sugar production,
about four point five million tons, and that in two
(19:19):
five the US was processing thirty million tons of beats. Yeah. Um.
As of twenty nineteen, UM two hundred and seventy five
million tons of sugar beets were being grown around the
world every year, and as of one the beat sugar
market was worth some four point three billion dollars a year,
(19:42):
and growing um expected to be worth half again as
much by wow. Yeah. Yeah. Sugarcane is a pain to
grow and it's a pain to harvest, and UM beats
are a lot easier, So yep, there you go. There
are a number of world records about beat roots. UM
(20:05):
Guinness lists the longest on record as coming from the
UK and measuring eight point five six meters long. I
didn't transfer that into feet, but multiplied by three, So yeah,
that's what like something like that. I've got the longest
(20:28):
beat yep, yep to get the record. The Guinness record
for the heaviest is also from the UK, but from UM.
It weighed twenty three point nine nine five kilos. That
is sixties six point one three pounds um, which is
(20:50):
a lot of beat. Uh I saw. I saw a
photograph of that one, and uh, the the farmer I
presume was was holding it and and and at first
I thought that it was a pot, that like a
large terra cotta pot that green, that the that the
(21:10):
beat was somehow contained within. And then I was like, oh, no,
that's just the beat, that's just it was like a
very large beach ball sized anyway. Wow, Yeah, I was impressed.
I was impress. Yeah, that's impressive. Um. However, some people
are shall we say, less than impressed with beats. And
(21:33):
in fact, like, when I think of beats, I've always
liked them, but I did my experience with other people
was that they were uncool and not very well liked,
right or wrong. But that was kind of what filtered
into my understanding of beats. Um. So yeah, that we
there're plenty of beat fans, um, but yes, a lot
(21:56):
of people hate them with a passion. Einstein allegedly detested them.
Michelle and Barack Obama aren't fans. I think I read
they refused to let them be planted in the White
House guarden. Dang, all right, I really didn't like them.
And that's kind of my general sense is people people
who don't like them really don't like them. Uh, But
(22:20):
I feel like in general history tells us they've been
generally well liked. Yeah. Yeah, And we are going to
get into that history. But first we're going to get
into a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(22:43):
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Thank you. So historians
think beats were first eaten in the Mediterranean around two
thousand BC. Records indicate it was lauded for a variety
of reasons um the believed health and if that it had,
including nutrition, which I found interesting because from my understanding,
(23:05):
early perceptions of nutrition were interesting, shall we say, yes, yes, yes, um,
but also how long lasting they were and how they
were adaptable to a wide range of climates. Because of
its longevity, it spread far and wide. Ancient Greeks and
Romans enjoyed the leaves, while the roots were ground up
to use as a solve. UM. They were believed to
(23:27):
cure snake bites, UM, and a whole host of other
medicinal uses. Yeah. These early beats came in white and
like black, like purple black varieties UM. One or the other.
Never twain, she'll meet um and the the roots would
have been um smaller and tougher than the beats we
know today. But um, but by the like B C
(23:49):
E C E switchover, folks had developed those tap roots
into the like, plumper, tastier things that were more familiar
with or they were working towards it anyway. Yeah. Yeah,
but they were still very much interested in these medicinal uses,
including um plenty are Old Palpliny recommended roasting and eating
(24:11):
beats as a sort of garlic breath cure, which I
love that that was enough of a thing where they
were like, like, we gotta find something anything, Is it beats? Sure?
Just yeah, let's let's call it that. Definitely try it. Um.
And of course, of course the leaves were thought to
(24:31):
be an aphrodisiact in Greek mythology, Aphrodite eight beats to
enhance her appearance. But that was one example. I found
like a ton of examples of instances of beats being
used in old stories or folklore as some kind of
romantic enhancer or aphrodisiac. Yeah. According to some sources, eating
(24:57):
from the same beat root may it lead to to love? Yeah,
how do you prove this? How do you disprove it
that's true? A piki use a pikious that one. Um yeah,
I had a few beat recipes um old old cookbook,
(25:20):
including pickled beets, and also a dish that called for
the cook too. And I quote or I mean, you know,
probably not directly, but in an English translation. Slice the
beats with leaks and crush coriander and cuman, add raisin, wine,
boil all down to perfection. Bind it serve the beats
separate from the broth with oil and vinegar, which sounds
(25:44):
so good. I know. I love these old time recipes too.
Oh yeah, perfection perfection. How long is perfection? I don't
know it's perfection. You don't know what perfection means? Yeah,
and you are not worthy of this recipe. It's possible
(26:06):
the name beat came from the Greek letter beta, because
beats resembled the Greek letter or maybe or maybe not
the beats themselves, but not like the roots, but rather
they're um, they're they're seed pods or seed balls. Um. Yeah,
there's there's a bunch of different terms around the world
(26:26):
for for beats. It's not as clear of a lineage
to like a single like proto Indo European root as
a lot of the vege that we talked about on
here um. And there's a lot of interesting like like
metaphors about what people thought the plant looked like. Um.
Apparently the Greek word or like a Greek word um
stemmed from uh squid from like cephalopods. Because because it
(26:52):
was it was found in your the water, it was
it was it was called a sea beat and uh
and yeah, so I don't know, yeah, look a little
bit like a squid. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, when I
read that, I was like, I gotta look up what
the Greek letter vada looks like that just about seeing
it um. Somewhere between then the way back and the
(27:16):
sixteenth century, the red beat evolved. Um. Those always the
records getting muddled in terms of who was calling what
crop what this is also when I got very distracted
about and confused about shard. Yes, some historians think red
and white beats were developed in Italy and the third
century CE, which is a theory in part based on
(27:39):
the names Roman beat are Roman beat that appeared after that.
UM red beats may have appeared in China, perhaps from
a separate domestication event as early as the seventh century CEE.
The first record or known record of a red beat
in Europe appeared in two or around there, or when
(28:00):
Lee and hart Fuchs wrote that it was quote cultivated
almost everywhere in Germany. It popped up in England's written
record for the first time in the seventeenth century. That
same century, four varieties of beats were listed. John Gerard's
herbal recommended boiling the leaves and serving with oil, vinegar,
and pepper, and instructed vaguely, in my opinion, the curious
(28:24):
and cunning cook who will make many and diverse dishes,
both fair and goods. Yeah. He was basically like, be adventurous. Yeah,
something will happen, will be good, do what you want
with them. Yeah. Um. Around this time, and I was
telling Annie, I like really went down a rabbit hole
(28:47):
about beat iconography through through the ages. Um, I found
a really interesting paper about it anyway. Um. So so
around this time, like the fifteen the to the six hundreds, UM,
both like carrot shaped, like cone shaped beats and more
rounded beats started appearing in artwork. Um. But the cone
(29:12):
shapes were gradually replaced with spears moving up into the
modern day of artistic beat depictions. What a job you said.
That was such a straight face too. I really appreciated it.
(29:32):
Our modern day beat depictions. They are pretty, they are
they're lovely. Yeah, there's like a lot of still lives.
I guess that incorporate beats. Um. Yeah, And I think
I think that what was going on here um botanically anyway,
was that the the the conical kind of carrot shaped
(29:53):
beats were being specialized um for sugar beat production over
the next few centuries. UM and the spherical beats were
more the development of the table beat, the kind of
beat that you would find in kitchens and therefore have
showing up in artwork, you know. The it's always a
(30:14):
blessing when we can find these things. Beast together the
history right, and look at lovely arts. Boat. In the
eighteenth century, the King of Prussia set out to determine
the sweetest beat of them all. I like to imagine
(30:35):
this was a big, like public ceremony. Probably wasn't. Twenty
three varieties, eventually landing on the Silesian beat, the ancestor
of our modern sugar beat, and went on to subsidize
the beat industry. Yeah, and this picked off this long
(30:58):
varietal development process us that right, brought us to the
modern sugar beet. Um. The variety uh that I think
he was messing around with was originally made up of
about six percent sugar, and as of today, farmers and
researchers have brought it to nearly so wow. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
(31:19):
And as we've been alluding to this the whole time,
this kind of relation to sugar um and yeah, it
was really kicking off around this time. During the Napoleonic Wars,
the British kept sugar cane from entering into France. And
I feel like we've discussed this in several episodes and
all that came out of it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because
(31:40):
people were so hungry for sugar and and the sugar
cane was being so tightly controlled by the British. Yes, um.
So one of the responses the French had was turning
to a bunch of different sources for that sweetness factor,
including beats sweet beats. From to eighteen fifteen, the French
(32:01):
dedicated seventy nine thousand acres to sugar beat production and
three hundred small factories were built. Wild I know, they
really went all in, and they weren't the only ones. Um.
Colonial Americans depended on beats to get through winter months,
though in the early days they preferred things like radishes, carrots, turnips,
(32:22):
and parsnips um, but that did soon change. Beats caught
the interest of farmers, consumers, and scientists for a variety
of reasons. During the nineteenth century, beats were useful again,
not only because they could be grown in colder weather,
but because they lasted so long. The greens were prized
for salads, and people sometimes turned the beats themselves into borsch,
(32:44):
which we talked about in our recent Borsche episode. North
America really leaned into sugar beats and the eighteen thirties. UM.
I got confused by this because I read like conflicting
accounts of who really loved beats and who didn't. But
it seems it seems at this time North America really
(33:07):
did um. In his work, the American gardener William Cobitt wrote,
this vegetable, which is little used in England, is here
in as common use as carrots are there. Huh. This
was a time when sugar and other sweeteners could still
be prohibitively expensive, and consumers and food processors were looking
(33:30):
for cheaper, more available alternatives. Five per cent of the
world's sugar cane from sugar beets in eighteen forty. That
number jumped up to by eighteen eighty. A part of
this was due to a push by abolitionists to promote
a sweetener that didn't rely on exploitation and enslaved labor,
(33:51):
though they experienced a lot of pushback and never quite
achieved what they wanted before the Civil War. Over this time,
there were several failed tempts at commercial sugar beat factories
in the US, but the first successful operations started up
in California in eighteen seventy. Cattle farmers meanwhile, saw it
after the white cattle beat from Germany to feed their
(34:13):
livestock during the winter. Scientist like Justice lie Big chemically
analyzed beats in the eighteen forties, and sugar extraction itself
from beats was first documented in seventeen forty seven by
a German chemist name Andreas mar Graf or I think
that's his name, because his first name especially was printed
a lot of different ways in a lot of different places.
(34:33):
That's always exciting, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. His process was
improved upon by his Minute in seventeen. At the time,
beats were categorized by color or root shape, so much
attention was given to the latter. At one point during
the nineteenth century, debates broke out about the best manure
(34:56):
to use when growing beats and like the flavor in
part huhm. Also, women may have used beat juice to
rouge their cheeks and perhaps even dye their hair, which
I found interesting because this showed up in a government
(35:17):
like PDF that I found, But it was sort of
like one of those fun get interested in beats, yeah, government,
And I was like, okay, yeah, I I also, I
also did I saw that fact reported, but I didn't like,
I didn't see a very specific source for it. So
who knows. It's possible. It's definitely possible. Like I said,
(35:38):
rule Sta beats were a big victory garden crop during
World War two, rationing in America and Americans got really
creative with beats, um boiling, roasting, grilling, eating them raw,
and using up the leaves to saltang leaves. During this war,
some Mexican labors were forced into working at sugar beet farms,
(36:01):
and beat sugar may have also been used in explosives.
Sugar was apparently and sometimes beat sugar huh indeed uh.
And then US beat farmers started coming together to form
co ops in the nineteen seventies and then when was
that early two thousand's Dwight Shoots beat farm of the
(36:26):
office and there we are and there today. Thanks Dwight
Shroot just just bringing us into the into the home stretch.
M h. I did look up many Beat quotes from
him for this. I did not include any of them,
but I looked them up. Yeah, yeah, I do think
(36:49):
that that probably it probably does, uh root. Sorry, um.
Back to this whole World War two Victory garden thing,
like like so many other vegetables that were really big
in Victory gardens, they probably got a little bit of
a reputation afterwards as being sort of old fashioned or
like for poor people, or like a sustenance kind of
(37:12):
thing that you wouldn't want to choose to eat, dogy
maybe yeah, yeah, I agree. And then you just have
to wait long enough and then people are like, k,
this is the best thing I've ever had. Yeah. Well
(37:32):
that's what we have to say on beats for now.
It is. We do have some listener mail for you,
though we do. But first we have one more quick
break for word from our sponsor. We're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(37:53):
thank you. We're back with the bet Oh goodness, I'm
not good at Dove step for any of that, like
be boxing in my mouth, So that's what you get
and I'm sorry. Oh well, um, I you know one
(38:20):
day will get a budget to really add sound effects.
Oh man, that would be yeah. We should. We should
get like get like Noel Brown to come guests or
something and make all right, I mean the heck like
like most of our like Andrew and Dylan both do music. Yeah,
we've got some request for that. I think. Wouldn't it
(38:40):
be hilarious though if we were like we went up
to our boss and he's like, you've got to explain
this budget to me, Hawaii trip. Why is it all
sound effects for listener, Maile? Why not? It's important to
our brand. We're in an audio medium. This is what
it is. You can never have the same one, always
(39:04):
have to have a different one. And then he'd kick
us out, tell us no more money for matle jingles. Alright,
alas um Devin wrote, first, I am so excited about
the Bob's Burgers episode because I love that show. My
(39:25):
now husband and I moved out of state a few
years ago when I started grad school, and because of that,
we have missed out on all the family get togethers
that usually happened for every holiday. To make up for that,
we started our own new tradition. We've watched all of
the Bob's Burgers episodes associated with that holiday. This is
a super fun thing to do, especially since they are
(39:47):
episodes for just about every big holiday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween,
Valentine's Day, et cetera. Now that I know about the cookbook,
maybe we'll add in a themed burger to our tradition
as well. Set get Lee, I wanted to write about
the Rosemary episode. Like I mentioned, I am in graduate
school and I'm working on a PhD in analytical chemistry.
(40:08):
My research focuses on how certain types of hydrocarbons called
biogenic volatile organic compounds can influence aerosol growth and cloud formation.
The main hydrocarbon I work with is called alpha pinene,
and it smells exactly like pine essential oils. This has
ruined rosemary for me. Now, whenever I get a whiff
(40:30):
of or bite of something with rosemary. That smell is
like hardwired in my brain to think chemical. I guess
I'm glad I learned this now because for my next project,
I was considering using lamanine um, but I love citrus
fruits too much to even go there. I think I'll
play it safe and go as something else. Oh wow,
(40:51):
that's fascinating, it is. I mean, that totally makes sense,
especially if it's something you're working with and you just
get this like so creation with it. That can be
very very powerful with smells for me to oh of course, yeah. Yeah.
And you know once here, once your brain is trained
to think that something smells like poison, that is a
very very specific type of smell. That's I I've gotten
(41:16):
it's it's yeah, it's It's why you frequently can't smell
like a type of alcohol that's made you sick before,
something like that without feeling queasy about it later. It's
a very clever thing that our brains do, actually it is,
but not useful all the time. Right um. But also
that sounds like a lovely Bob's Burger's tradition. Yes, I
(41:40):
hope that you do add in the themed burger. I
think that would be great. Not to tell you how
to do your holiday celebrations, but I bet that would
be a nice little oh yeah, yeah, Victoria wrote last
week was the downsized, damn rascotta Pumpkin Feast. They didn't
(42:01):
write that with a question mark, but I I looked
up the pronunciation. That's as close as I feel like
I'm going to get. I'm so sorry. Um uh. Anyway,
the Pumpkin Fest um a celebration of giant pumpkins. This year,
someone grew a pumpkin that was over two thousand pounds.
It usually includes a giant pumpkin regatta, pumpkin catapults, and
a parade, among other events, but because of COVID, we
(42:23):
just had the pumpkin decorating and display. Anyway, before the
Pumpkin Fest announced they were scaling back, my aunt, who
very much wanted to see the festival, already bought her
plane tickets. To fill in the pumpkiny goodness, I declared
I would make a feast instead of a pumpkin Fest.
There would be a pumpkin feast. While in the many
planning stages, my mom figured out why she had been
(42:45):
feeling off for the past couple of years is that
she's become gluten intolerant slash sensitive after she had her
gallbladder removed, so I endeavored to make the feast gluten free,
testing out various alternative flowers and pizza does. The end
result was a huge success. I only managed to take
pictures of the desserts because I was too busy making
the food earlier, except the donuts plus the butter because
(43:06):
that was made to day in advance. There was pumpkin
bread with homemade butter, fried pumpkin crisps, the potato chips,
but pumpkin pumpkin pizza, pumpkin pie, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin cake,
and pumpkin ice cream all gluten free. So here is
a suggestion for a future episode. Plus something I'm interested
in knowing what is xanthem gum and how slash wise
(43:28):
it used in so many gluten free recipes. Yeah, I
like I like a challenge. I feel like this is
a challenge I like to I like I we're both
kind of like sitting up a bit straighter. Yeah yeah, yeah,
we're both like we're all on our shoulders a little
like getting loose, like ready to ready to move, move
(43:51):
to our other computer research um, yeah, that sounds amazing.
I all those foods sounds so good. And that pumpkin
fest like when whenever, right, whenever it's back. Oh, we've
got to go. Yes, it's got to go so much.
(44:11):
And you yeah and like and like you need to
go to Maine anyway? I do. Yes, I have many
things I need to go to Maine for, so I'm
going to leave it in that vague and mysterious most
of them are food related. Okay, all right, I believe
you as you should. I would never I know, Gyle,
(44:33):
You're very believable. Thank you. Um, but I do love
I love this creativity. People like, oh, this event hasn't
worked out, or this holiday hasn't worked out like it
normally does. What's something we can do? Yeah, something to
write right exactly? Make your make your own fun so good? Yes,
(44:57):
if not a fest, then a feast. I love it. Hmm.
Thanks to both of those listeners who are writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
our emails hello at favor pod dot com. We are
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you savor Is production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeart
(45:18):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard, with a special shout out this week
to j J. Podsway. Thanks to you for listening, and
we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to favor Protection of iHeart Radio. I'm
Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have
an episode for you about beats. Beats. Where did this
idea come from? I thought at first it might be
a Halloween Yeah, the vaguely Halloween relatable since we did
borished and um, I realized that we hadn't done beats yet.
(00:29):
I was like, well, we have to do beats. And
I kind of had it percolating in my brain and
then I was yeah, I was thinking about, um, the
last time that I bothered to peel a beat, which
I don't usually do because I don't mind the kind
of earthiness that you get from a from an unpeeled beat. Um,
and as long as you wash them good, it's all fine. Um.
But so the last time I peeled a beat, it
(00:51):
was a big beat, and I just wound up with
this large and it was I felt like, I felt like,
I don't know, like like some kind of version of
Lady McBee, Like I was sitting there with like these
like blood covered hands and like this bloody heart shaped thing,
and I was just like, yeah, yeah, that's true. I
can see that. I can envision it perfectly, Lauren. Yeah, yeah,
(01:14):
I also love that. I just called Lady McBeth Lady McBee.
I'm not even liked it too. I'm not even really
I'm like theater adjacent anyway. It's it's fine. This is
not a theater I'm in. I'm in my house. Isn't
all of life, it's all stage. We are merely players.
It's true, it's true. I really appreciated it, but I
(01:37):
thought it was very funny, like you're on first name basis. Yeah, yeah,
um well I always think of the office less uh,
theatrical less murder. Yeah, well but yeah, Dwight shrewd tesz
(01:59):
a beat from Beats Bearstica. Um My, my dad really
really liked beats. I like them too, but yeah, that
that die. I've only like used them a couple of times.
It just gets everywhere. Yeah, I get some golden beats, dude,
Like they they're so I mean, like they're still very
brightly colored, but they will not die. Everything that bright red.
(02:22):
It's a lot more skin toned, so it's a lot
easier to deal with. I don't know why, but then
I'm like, what if all my skin is just becomes
golden beet skin to ask, um, I feel like they
I don't see them in the stores often, but I
will take another another look. Yeah, yeah, take a gander.
(02:46):
Um when my I do love a beat. Um. When
when my roommate and I grill out, we usually get
a bunch of beets and uh and slice them up
kind of thin and grill them so that they're just
real real crispy and and uh and sweet and little
like beat chips. Almost so good, so good. Yeah that
(03:09):
sounds so good. Well, I will say beats tend to
have like their lovers and their haters. And my ex
boyfriend was a hater. He don spised beats like it
was one of those things like you can regularly depend
on someone to go on a brand if you bring something. Okay,
(03:30):
that much better? Okay. He despised him. And one time
we went to this fancy restaurant in l A that
was known for vegetarian dishes, and he excitedly went on
and on and on about how he wanted to order
the beef tar tar um, and I, being the terrible
(03:52):
person that I am, did not correct him because it
was in fact beat tuh huh, and it wasn't until
he ordered it and the waitress wrote it down. I
think she was like, maybe he misspoke or maybe I misheard,
and then she was about to walk away, and I
was like, no, no, no no, no, okay, wait, can't order this.
(04:12):
And I don't understand where we broke up. Well, you
didn't break up, like at the table right there, right,
So it was a silent ride home. It could have
been for any number of reasons. But goodness, um, well
yeah you stopped. You stopped it before the plate hit
the table. I feel like you deserved points for that.
(04:34):
And I wanted the beat O I knew he would
have been. That sounds that sounds delicious, like you can
smoke a beat and it's tasty, like get some I
don't know, maybe some like goat cheese involved on the
plate or something. I bet it was delicious. I bet
regrets should have like I hadn't no idea either, but
(05:01):
this is so tasty. Wow, I guess I will eat it.
Then I will say. I feel like we've talked about
this in several past episodes, this one researching it, the
punds just an ocean of I I don't think I
(05:22):
opened a single article that aside from the like really
academic journal ones that I read, but every other piece
that I read had like beat it or the beat
goes on in there somewhere drop. Oh yeah, Yeah, there
was one I came across that I thought was really
(05:42):
creative and I've forgotten it already. But I'm sure as
I'm like, you know, stewing on what the title of
the episode will be, maybe I will come up with
it myself. I hope, So, I hope. So I want
to hear it. Yes, we'll have to see. We'll have
to see. Um and yes, as Lauren said, you can
see are recent episode on Borish. I feel like we've
done a lot of things that are kind of related,
(06:04):
but that's probably the most directly related. Yeah, the two
episodes on sugar as well. Yes, but I guess this
brings us too hawk questions. Beats what are they? Well?
Beats also sometimes called beat roots, are a sort of
(06:27):
sugar storage device for this type of flowering plant that
we've we've we've decided to just go on and eat
this as a vegetable sometimes, um M, yeah, sugar storage device.
It's very menacing, but that's what we've said. I watch
a lot of horror movies. Is there anything you don't
(06:50):
find menacing? Annie, Honestly, it's hard, like pretty much everything
I'm like, But what if uh, you know, beats beats, Uh,
they're they're they're they're usually bulbous um kind of half stem,
half root sort of things, sometimes called tap roots um.
And they grow under ground and store up water and
(07:11):
sugars and nutrients that are meant to help a plant
grow one year and then survive a cold winter and
then regrow and flour and produce seeds the next year. Um.
But generally beats do not get a chance to do
that because we dig them up and eat them that
first year. Impatient, impatient. Oh, we don't want them for
the flowers, We want them for the delicious sugar storage devices. Um.
(07:39):
These uh, these tap roots come in a range of
brilliant colors, from yellow to gold to red to violet. Um.
The roots have rings inside them, like a tree, which
you can see if you slice them. Unlike trees, though,
each ring is alive and actively growing, with the capacity
to transmit both water and sugar through out the plant.
(08:01):
Trees and other woody stems tend to only grow new
cells and carry sugars in their outer layers. Yeah. Um.
Researchers think that this makes beats really good at storing sugar,
like particularly good. Again, we're coming back to sugar, it's all,
it's all going to come around. The botanical name is
Beta vulgaris, and the bright colors the beats come in. Oh,
(08:24):
those colors. To this group of pigments that are named
for beats, they're called beta lanes. They're unique to this,
to this wide taxonomical order that beats are in, along
with stuff like rhubarb and flower and cactus. Other red
and purple pigments, say like in tomatoes or radishes, are
from this whole other group called um antho syn ins
and um. This is why beat juice is so like
(08:46):
pervasively colorful, because these pigments stay stable across a range
of pH levels, unlike antho syn ins. So um. So yeah,
Like if you are trying to die frosting, Um, if
you added like a blueberry juice to the frosting, it
would just go gray. But if you add beat juice,
it will stay in nice pink. Yeah. How interesting? Yeah
(09:09):
yeah yeah um yeah if you if you, I mean,
it might make the frosting taste a little tiny bit
like beet, but you know, um, yeah, So the roots
can be um used in any number of ways. They
can be cooked, roasted or boiled or steamed or sauteed
or grilled a whole or sliced as a side dish,
alone or with other root vegetables, served hot or cold,
(09:30):
added to soups and stews. You can pickle a beat,
you can juice a beat. Um. I mean you can
just like eat them raw, maybe like grated into a
salad or or a slaw. Perhaps. Um. I've read that
in Australia and New Zealand, sliced beets are served as
like a sandwich topping. Huh, and I have I don't
think I've ever encountered that, and now I am so
(09:51):
now I want that. I want that right now. I
think I've only had the I can't remember, might have
been in one of those places, but I feel like
I've had that when you have avoca to oh huh
on a sandwich and sometimes they'll put beats on top.
But okay, who knows, let us listeners. Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah for sure, um and yeah. The roots are sweet
(10:15):
and earthy and kind of mild and can have a
range of other sort of like side flavors from kind
of like clove like to a little bit um a
stringent read like puckery um raw their crunchy cooked. They
can get like buttery tender, so good. I don't think
I've ever had a cooked beat. I've just had like
(10:35):
in salads or yeah, like a roasted bead is so good.
I know, yeah, you convinced me right away, right off
the top. I want oh, okay, all right, um cool,
I'm not going to threaten to come to your house
with food again. But but like the next time we
(10:57):
have to get together, there's going to be some cooked
beats involved in everyone else and in our D and
D group is going to be very confused. Um, but
it's going to be great. It's going to be fantastic. Uh.
And yet beat beat roots do taste a little bit
like dirt, And it's because of the specific compound called geosman,
(11:17):
which actually means dirt smell um. And it's one of
the compounds that contributes to like like the lovely fresh,
earthy smell after a rain. Um. It is produced in
beats and also by a number of microorganisms that live
in dirt. Uh. Humans are pretty sensitive to it because
(11:38):
it can indicate um like microbial contamination in water, which
is a useful thing to be able to detect. Uh.
It Also, it also is one of the compounds um
that shows up in wine if you've got cork taint.
So yeah, I guess also useful to be able to
(11:59):
detect in what I guess? So yeah yeah um. And
if you dislike it, that's probably why you dislike beats,
like I've I've read. I've read that that's like a
leading like like a contributing factor to dislike of beats. Um.
But um, adding acid to a beat will will reduce
(12:23):
the the odor of us. So yeah, there you go.
There are options, There are options. Um. The greens are
also eaten when they're young. They're good for salads. They
taste kind of like spinach, which is um botanically related,
and when the leaves are more mature, they're usually cooked
as you would with any kind of slightly tougher green.
(12:45):
Shard is a variety of beat that is grown for
its leaves instead of its roots, which I did not
know until today either, and that confused me, and I
was like, do I have to go back and research
everything again? Because that might change all of this, all
of this. Yeah, I think that's I think that's a
(13:06):
different episode. But it does explain why, um, why the ribs,
the central ribs of shard leaves come in the same
colors that beat roots do. Yes, yes, shard comes with
that warning label cooked with it once because I'm like,
oh no, oh, no, oh, dear. The roots of some
(13:28):
varieties of beats are grown specifically to produce sugar, to
like refine sugar out of um. And these are kind
of long white beats called sugar beets. Makes sense. They
look sort of like a like a carrot that Bnicula
just drained all of the life force out of. See
(13:48):
you didn't see listeners when I just gotta horrified. Look.
Oh no, the poor carrot. Oh whatever ever, that's it's fine,
it's fine. I don't care about carrots. Not. I don't
think the carrot cares. I more proof about your vampireism.
(14:15):
We heard you've got like a little notebook somewhere. You're
over here taken notes. You're like, she associates with Bunicula,
doesn't care about carrots. Yeah, to make sugar from sugar beet. Um.
Usually the beats are either juiced um, and then that's processed,
(14:36):
or that they might be pulped into dry flakes or
granules and then and then that will be transported and
processed to extract the sugar. Beats are also used as
animal feed um and uh. Beat extracts are used in
the production of everything from dies to cosmetics, to nutritional
supplements to biofuels. Lots of beat industry out there, industrious beat.
(15:01):
M Well what about the nutrition. Beats are pretty good
for you, lots of fiber, good spread of micronutrients. Um.
Beats will help fill you up, but to keep you going,
pair with a with some fat and some protein. When
you eat them raw including just like just like straight
beat juice. Um, they can aggravate sensitive guts so um.
(15:24):
So if that's an issue for you, then just cook
them cooking first. Yeah. Um uh. The rent to purple
ones can tint your urine and your stools. Um. And
apparently this is common in about fourteen percent of the
population here in the United States. Yes, there are studies
about it. Lauren, Laura, Lauren always finn talk about pooping. Look,
(15:54):
there's uh it's part of the digestive system. Okay, I'm
not mad about it. I'm a pressed to be honest. Well, look,
I'm I'm not the only person fascinated by this. Okay,
there there's actually a medical term for having beat colored
(16:17):
and poop and it is baccheria victoria. I I looked
for a pronunciation. Wow, the Internet really let us down.
It did, it did? Thanks for nothing, the Internet. Uh yeah, yeah,
(16:39):
however you pronounce it, it's nothing to be concerned about. Um. Uh,
it can be very startling, but yeah, it can sometimes
indicate an iron deficiency I've read. But but yeah, like
if I guess, if you eat like a lot of
beats and it happens like every time you do, then
you know, like try to get into a maybe called
(17:00):
a doctor and maybe get some blood work done. See
see if iron deficiency is a thing. I'm trying to
envision a circumstance, right, A lot of beats and I
was like, you know what, I gotta go to the doctor,
which you should. It's just so outside of like sure possibility,
what the future holds for me? Um, you could go
(17:24):
on a very serious borsched kick. Okay, I could I
could anytime now. Um, all that all out aside beats
and their juice and their extracts are under investigation for
all kinds of potentially beneficial properties UM, including helping prevent
cardiovascular disease and cancer. UM. On kind of smaller levels,
(17:47):
they've they're they're the extracts of beats have been found
to have all kinds of potentially exciting properties antioxidant, um,
anti diabetic. The list goes on um. But as always,
before consuming a medicinal amount of anything, consulted. Doctor who
is not us because bodies are complicated. Indeed, markof that
(18:14):
bingo guard. There you go, there you go. Oh, yes,
we are definitely not doctors and certainly not medical doctor.
Oh yeah, that's not that's the furthest furthest type of
doctor away from any kind of doctorate that I could
possibly get. Right, I'm like, imagine doctor strange, but on
(18:37):
one level, one side of the spectrum, he was a doctor,
but on the other side he's just strange. I'm on
that strange. You're on the strange side. Yeah, so much
the medical doctor, hard hard same. I feel like that
explains everything, that clarifies it. We do have a few
(18:58):
numbers for you. We do, we do, yes, And actually
this first one kind of surprised me. Um. Around of
the world's sugar comes from beats. Some resources suggest that
sugar beats account for over of domestic U s sugar production,
about four point five million tons, and that in two
(19:19):
five the US was processing thirty million tons of beats. Yeah. Um.
As of twenty nineteen, UM two hundred and seventy five
million tons of sugar beets were being grown around the
world every year, and as of one the beat sugar
market was worth some four point three billion dollars a year,
(19:42):
and growing um expected to be worth half again as
much by wow. Yeah. Yeah. Sugarcane is a pain to
grow and it's a pain to harvest, and UM beats
are a lot easier, So yep, there you go. There
are a number of world records about beat roots. UM
(20:05):
Guinness lists the longest on record as coming from the
UK and measuring eight point five six meters long. I
didn't transfer that into feet, but multiplied by three, So yeah,
that's what like something like that. I've got the longest
(20:28):
beat yep, yep to get the record. The Guinness record
for the heaviest is also from the UK, but from UM.
It weighed twenty three point nine nine five kilos. That
is sixties six point one three pounds um, which is
(20:50):
a lot of beat. Uh I saw. I saw a
photograph of that one, and uh, the the farmer I
presume was was holding it and and and at first
I thought that it was a pot, that like a
large terra cotta pot that green, that the that the
(21:10):
beat was somehow contained within. And then I was like, oh, no,
that's just the beat, that's just it was like a
very large beach ball sized anyway. Wow, Yeah, I was impressed.
I was impress. Yeah, that's impressive. Um. However, some people
are shall we say, less than impressed with beats. And
(21:33):
in fact, like, when I think of beats, I've always
liked them, but I did my experience with other people
was that they were uncool and not very well liked,
right or wrong. But that was kind of what filtered
into my understanding of beats. Um. So yeah, that we
there're plenty of beat fans, um, but yes, a lot
(21:56):
of people hate them with a passion. Einstein allegedly detested them.
Michelle and Barack Obama aren't fans. I think I read
they refused to let them be planted in the White
House guarden. Dang, all right, I really didn't like them.
And that's kind of my general sense is people people
who don't like them really don't like them. Uh, But
(22:20):
I feel like in general history tells us they've been
generally well liked. Yeah. Yeah, And we are going to
get into that history. But first we're going to get
into a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(22:43):
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Thank you. So historians
think beats were first eaten in the Mediterranean around two
thousand BC. Records indicate it was lauded for a variety
of reasons um the believed health and if that it had,
including nutrition, which I found interesting because from my understanding,
(23:05):
early perceptions of nutrition were interesting, shall we say, yes, yes, yes, um,
but also how long lasting they were and how they
were adaptable to a wide range of climates. Because of
its longevity, it spread far and wide. Ancient Greeks and
Romans enjoyed the leaves, while the roots were ground up
to use as a solve. UM. They were believed to
(23:27):
cure snake bites, UM, and a whole host of other
medicinal uses. Yeah. These early beats came in white and
like black, like purple black varieties UM. One or the other.
Never twain, she'll meet um and the the roots would
have been um smaller and tougher than the beats we
know today. But um, but by the like B C
(23:49):
E C E switchover, folks had developed those tap roots
into the like, plumper, tastier things that were more familiar
with or they were working towards it anyway. Yeah. Yeah,
but they were still very much interested in these medicinal uses,
including um plenty are Old Palpliny recommended roasting and eating
(24:11):
beats as a sort of garlic breath cure, which I
love that that was enough of a thing where they
were like, like, we gotta find something anything, Is it beats? Sure?
Just yeah, let's let's call it that. Definitely try it. Um.
And of course, of course the leaves were thought to
(24:31):
be an aphrodisiact in Greek mythology, Aphrodite eight beats to
enhance her appearance. But that was one example. I found
like a ton of examples of instances of beats being
used in old stories or folklore as some kind of
romantic enhancer or aphrodisiac. Yeah. According to some sources, eating
(24:57):
from the same beat root may it lead to to love? Yeah,
how do you prove this? How do you disprove it
that's true? A piki use a pikious that one. Um yeah,
I had a few beat recipes um old old cookbook,
(25:20):
including pickled beets, and also a dish that called for
the cook too. And I quote or I mean, you know,
probably not directly, but in an English translation. Slice the
beats with leaks and crush coriander and cuman, add raisin, wine,
boil all down to perfection. Bind it serve the beats
separate from the broth with oil and vinegar, which sounds
(25:44):
so good. I know. I love these old time recipes too.
Oh yeah, perfection perfection. How long is perfection? I don't
know it's perfection. You don't know what perfection means? Yeah,
and you are not worthy of this recipe. It's possible
(26:06):
the name beat came from the Greek letter beta, because
beats resembled the Greek letter or maybe or maybe not
the beats themselves, but not like the roots, but rather
they're um, they're they're seed pods or seed balls. Um. Yeah,
there's there's a bunch of different terms around the world
(26:26):
for for beats. It's not as clear of a lineage
to like a single like proto Indo European root as
a lot of the vege that we talked about on
here um. And there's a lot of interesting like like
metaphors about what people thought the plant looked like. Um.
Apparently the Greek word or like a Greek word um
stemmed from uh squid from like cephalopods. Because because it
(26:52):
was it was found in your the water, it was
it was it was called a sea beat and uh
and yeah, so I don't know, yeah, look a little
bit like a squid. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, when I
read that, I was like, I gotta look up what
the Greek letter vada looks like that just about seeing
it um. Somewhere between then the way back and the
(27:16):
sixteenth century, the red beat evolved. Um. Those always the
records getting muddled in terms of who was calling what
crop what this is also when I got very distracted
about and confused about shard. Yes, some historians think red
and white beats were developed in Italy and the third
century CE, which is a theory in part based on
(27:39):
the names Roman beat are Roman beat that appeared after that.
UM red beats may have appeared in China, perhaps from
a separate domestication event as early as the seventh century CEE.
The first record or known record of a red beat
in Europe appeared in two or around there, or when
(28:00):
Lee and hart Fuchs wrote that it was quote cultivated
almost everywhere in Germany. It popped up in England's written
record for the first time in the seventeenth century. That
same century, four varieties of beats were listed. John Gerard's
herbal recommended boiling the leaves and serving with oil, vinegar,
and pepper, and instructed vaguely, in my opinion, the curious
(28:24):
and cunning cook who will make many and diverse dishes,
both fair and goods. Yeah. He was basically like, be adventurous. Yeah,
something will happen, will be good, do what you want
with them. Yeah. Um. Around this time, and I was
telling Annie, I like really went down a rabbit hole
(28:47):
about beat iconography through through the ages. Um, I found
a really interesting paper about it anyway. Um. So so
around this time, like the fifteen the to the six hundreds, UM,
both like carrot shaped, like cone shaped beats and more
rounded beats started appearing in artwork. Um. But the cone
(29:12):
shapes were gradually replaced with spears moving up into the
modern day of artistic beat depictions. What a job you said.
That was such a straight face too. I really appreciated it.
(29:32):
Our modern day beat depictions. They are pretty, they are
they're lovely. Yeah, there's like a lot of still lives.
I guess that incorporate beats. Um. Yeah, And I think
I think that what was going on here um botanically anyway,
was that the the the conical kind of carrot shaped
(29:53):
beats were being specialized um for sugar beat production over
the next few centuries. UM and the spherical beats were
more the development of the table beat, the kind of
beat that you would find in kitchens and therefore have
showing up in artwork, you know. The it's always a
(30:14):
blessing when we can find these things. Beast together the
history right, and look at lovely arts. Boat. In the
eighteenth century, the King of Prussia set out to determine
the sweetest beat of them all. I like to imagine
(30:35):
this was a big, like public ceremony. Probably wasn't. Twenty
three varieties, eventually landing on the Silesian beat, the ancestor
of our modern sugar beat, and went on to subsidize
the beat industry. Yeah, and this picked off this long
(30:58):
varietal development process us that right, brought us to the
modern sugar beet. Um. The variety uh that I think
he was messing around with was originally made up of
about six percent sugar, and as of today, farmers and
researchers have brought it to nearly so wow. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
(31:19):
And as we've been alluding to this the whole time,
this kind of relation to sugar um and yeah, it
was really kicking off around this time. During the Napoleonic Wars,
the British kept sugar cane from entering into France. And
I feel like we've discussed this in several episodes and
all that came out of it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because
(31:40):
people were so hungry for sugar and and the sugar
cane was being so tightly controlled by the British. Yes, um.
So one of the responses the French had was turning
to a bunch of different sources for that sweetness factor,
including beats sweet beats. From to eighteen fifteen, the French
(32:01):
dedicated seventy nine thousand acres to sugar beat production and
three hundred small factories were built. Wild I know, they
really went all in, and they weren't the only ones. Um.
Colonial Americans depended on beats to get through winter months,
though in the early days they preferred things like radishes, carrots, turnips,
(32:22):
and parsnips um, but that did soon change. Beats caught
the interest of farmers, consumers, and scientists for a variety
of reasons. During the nineteenth century, beats were useful again,
not only because they could be grown in colder weather,
but because they lasted so long. The greens were prized
for salads, and people sometimes turned the beats themselves into borsch,
(32:44):
which we talked about in our recent Borsche episode. North
America really leaned into sugar beats and the eighteen thirties. UM.
I got confused by this because I read like conflicting
accounts of who really loved beats and who didn't. But
it seems it seems at this time North America really
(33:07):
did um. In his work, the American gardener William Cobitt wrote,
this vegetable, which is little used in England, is here
in as common use as carrots are there. Huh. This
was a time when sugar and other sweeteners could still
be prohibitively expensive, and consumers and food processors were looking
(33:30):
for cheaper, more available alternatives. Five per cent of the
world's sugar cane from sugar beets in eighteen forty. That
number jumped up to by eighteen eighty. A part of
this was due to a push by abolitionists to promote
a sweetener that didn't rely on exploitation and enslaved labor,
(33:51):
though they experienced a lot of pushback and never quite
achieved what they wanted before the Civil War. Over this time,
there were several failed tempts at commercial sugar beat factories
in the US, but the first successful operations started up
in California in eighteen seventy. Cattle farmers meanwhile, saw it
after the white cattle beat from Germany to feed their
(34:13):
livestock during the winter. Scientist like Justice lie Big chemically
analyzed beats in the eighteen forties, and sugar extraction itself
from beats was first documented in seventeen forty seven by
a German chemist name Andreas mar Graf or I think
that's his name, because his first name especially was printed
a lot of different ways in a lot of different places.
(34:33):
That's always exciting, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. His process was
improved upon by his Minute in seventeen. At the time,
beats were categorized by color or root shape, so much
attention was given to the latter. At one point during
the nineteenth century, debates broke out about the best manure
(34:56):
to use when growing beats and like the flavor in
part huhm. Also, women may have used beat juice to
rouge their cheeks and perhaps even dye their hair, which
I found interesting because this showed up in a government
(35:17):
like PDF that I found, But it was sort of
like one of those fun get interested in beats, yeah, government,
And I was like, okay, yeah, I I also, I
also did I saw that fact reported, but I didn't like,
I didn't see a very specific source for it. So
who knows. It's possible. It's definitely possible. Like I said,
(35:38):
rule Sta beats were a big victory garden crop during
World War two, rationing in America and Americans got really
creative with beats, um boiling, roasting, grilling, eating them raw,
and using up the leaves to saltang leaves. During this war,
some Mexican labors were forced into working at sugar beet farms,
(36:01):
and beat sugar may have also been used in explosives.
Sugar was apparently and sometimes beat sugar huh indeed uh.
And then US beat farmers started coming together to form
co ops in the nineteen seventies and then when was
that early two thousand's Dwight Shoots beat farm of the
(36:26):
office and there we are and there today. Thanks Dwight
Shroot just just bringing us into the into the home stretch.
M h. I did look up many Beat quotes from
him for this. I did not include any of them,
but I looked them up. Yeah, yeah, I do think
(36:49):
that that probably it probably does, uh root. Sorry, um.
Back to this whole World War two Victory garden thing,
like like so many other vegetables that were really big
in Victory gardens, they probably got a little bit of
a reputation afterwards as being sort of old fashioned or
like for poor people, or like a sustenance kind of
(37:12):
thing that you wouldn't want to choose to eat, dogy
maybe yeah, yeah, I agree. And then you just have
to wait long enough and then people are like, k,
this is the best thing I've ever had. Yeah. Well
(37:32):
that's what we have to say on beats for now.
It is. We do have some listener mail for you,
though we do. But first we have one more quick
break for word from our sponsor. We're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(37:53):
thank you. We're back with the bet Oh goodness, I'm
not good at Dove step for any of that, like
be boxing in my mouth, So that's what you get
and I'm sorry. Oh well, um, I you know one
(38:20):
day will get a budget to really add sound effects.
Oh man, that would be yeah. We should. We should
get like get like Noel Brown to come guests or
something and make all right, I mean the heck like
like most of our like Andrew and Dylan both do music. Yeah,
we've got some request for that. I think. Wouldn't it
(38:40):
be hilarious though if we were like we went up
to our boss and he's like, you've got to explain
this budget to me, Hawaii trip. Why is it all
sound effects for listener, Maile? Why not? It's important to
our brand. We're in an audio medium. This is what
it is. You can never have the same one, always
(39:04):
have to have a different one. And then he'd kick
us out, tell us no more money for matle jingles. Alright,
alas um Devin wrote, first, I am so excited about
the Bob's Burgers episode because I love that show. My
(39:25):
now husband and I moved out of state a few
years ago when I started grad school, and because of that,
we have missed out on all the family get togethers
that usually happened for every holiday. To make up for that,
we started our own new tradition. We've watched all of
the Bob's Burgers episodes associated with that holiday. This is
a super fun thing to do, especially since they are
(39:47):
episodes for just about every big holiday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween,
Valentine's Day, et cetera. Now that I know about the cookbook,
maybe we'll add in a themed burger to our tradition
as well. Set get Lee, I wanted to write about
the Rosemary episode. Like I mentioned, I am in graduate
school and I'm working on a PhD in analytical chemistry.
(40:08):
My research focuses on how certain types of hydrocarbons called
biogenic volatile organic compounds can influence aerosol growth and cloud formation.
The main hydrocarbon I work with is called alpha pinene,
and it smells exactly like pine essential oils. This has
ruined rosemary for me. Now, whenever I get a whiff
(40:30):
of or bite of something with rosemary. That smell is
like hardwired in my brain to think chemical. I guess
I'm glad I learned this now because for my next project,
I was considering using lamanine um, but I love citrus
fruits too much to even go there. I think I'll
play it safe and go as something else. Oh wow,
(40:51):
that's fascinating, it is. I mean, that totally makes sense,
especially if it's something you're working with and you just
get this like so creation with it. That can be
very very powerful with smells for me to oh of course, yeah. Yeah.
And you know once here, once your brain is trained
to think that something smells like poison, that is a
very very specific type of smell. That's I I've gotten
(41:16):
it's it's yeah, it's It's why you frequently can't smell
like a type of alcohol that's made you sick before,
something like that without feeling queasy about it later. It's
a very clever thing that our brains do, actually it is,
but not useful all the time. Right um. But also
that sounds like a lovely Bob's Burger's tradition. Yes, I
(41:40):
hope that you do add in the themed burger. I
think that would be great. Not to tell you how
to do your holiday celebrations, but I bet that would
be a nice little oh yeah, yeah, Victoria wrote last
week was the downsized, damn rascotta Pumpkin Feast. They didn't
(42:01):
write that with a question mark, but I I looked
up the pronunciation. That's as close as I feel like
I'm going to get. I'm so sorry. Um uh. Anyway,
the Pumpkin Fest um a celebration of giant pumpkins. This year,
someone grew a pumpkin that was over two thousand pounds.
It usually includes a giant pumpkin regatta, pumpkin catapults, and
a parade, among other events, but because of COVID, we
(42:23):
just had the pumpkin decorating and display. Anyway, before the
Pumpkin Fest announced they were scaling back, my aunt, who
very much wanted to see the festival, already bought her
plane tickets. To fill in the pumpkiny goodness, I declared
I would make a feast instead of a pumpkin Fest.
There would be a pumpkin feast. While in the many
planning stages, my mom figured out why she had been
(42:45):
feeling off for the past couple of years is that
she's become gluten intolerant slash sensitive after she had her
gallbladder removed, so I endeavored to make the feast gluten free,
testing out various alternative flowers and pizza does. The end
result was a huge success. I only managed to take
pictures of the desserts because I was too busy making
the food earlier, except the donuts plus the butter because
(43:06):
that was made to day in advance. There was pumpkin
bread with homemade butter, fried pumpkin crisps, the potato chips,
but pumpkin pumpkin pizza, pumpkin pie, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin cake,
and pumpkin ice cream all gluten free. So here is
a suggestion for a future episode. Plus something I'm interested
in knowing what is xanthem gum and how slash wise
(43:28):
it used in so many gluten free recipes. Yeah, I
like I like a challenge. I feel like this is
a challenge I like to I like I we're both
kind of like sitting up a bit straighter. Yeah yeah, yeah,
we're both like we're all on our shoulders a little
like getting loose, like ready to ready to move, move
(43:51):
to our other computer research um, yeah, that sounds amazing.
I all those foods sounds so good. And that pumpkin
fest like when whenever, right, whenever it's back. Oh, we've
got to go. Yes, it's got to go so much.
(44:11):
And you yeah and like and like you need to
go to Maine anyway? I do. Yes, I have many
things I need to go to Maine for, so I'm
going to leave it in that vague and mysterious most
of them are food related. Okay, all right, I believe
you as you should. I would never I know, Gyle,
(44:33):
You're very believable. Thank you. Um, but I do love
I love this creativity. People like, oh, this event hasn't
worked out, or this holiday hasn't worked out like it
normally does. What's something we can do? Yeah, something to
write right exactly? Make your make your own fun so good? Yes,
(44:57):
if not a fest, then a feast. I love it. Hmm.
Thanks to both of those listeners who are writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
our emails hello at favor pod dot com. We are
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you savor Is production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeart
(45:18):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard, with a special shout out this week
to j J. Podsway. Thanks to you for listening, and
we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
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