Also, you can make this into a cold vegetarian summer soup by leaving out the meat and tomato sauce, and adding halved hard-boiled eggs and chopped cucumbers at serving.
I love beets. On salads, in sour cream and horseradish, pickled, or anytime. I make a mean borscht, too. Yum.
Also, if you eat enough of them, you’ll pee red. Cool if you’re 6, which I was.
That sounds right tasty.
The only beets I liked as a child were the pickled version. All the others I had were too mushy. My grandmother, bless her, only knew how to boil vegetables. But as an adult I’ve come to love roasted beets. My brother roasted some one night with balsamic vinegar and mint. They were so delicious I had about four helpings.
(Which made for a colorful evening later on…)
I made my own borscht a few times and was very fond of it until someone pointed out that it’s generally served cold. I tried it cold. Naaah. Now I can’t make it except when I’m alone lest I be laughed at for not understanding that borscht is served cold.
Plain beets = bleah.
Oh, and I don’t care for Harvard beets either.
I like beets. It has this sort of “corn” aftertaste.
**Osip, ** got any recipes for okhroshka and/or kvass? I’ve got recipes for both, but neither seems terribly authentic. Nobody makes okhroshka in restaurants for some reason, but it’s one of the best cold summer soups around. The version I had involved cold boiled potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, green onions, a kvass base (kvass is a very mildly alcoholic beverage made from fermented dark rye bread, among other things - it’s somewhat of an acquired tase, but homesick Russians get very nostalgic for it, and it’s difficult to buy in the U.S. except in concentrate form, which is just not the same), yogurt or sour cream, and a really serious horseradish kick. I’ve never had anything so refreshing after a hike in the mountains.
Ah dear eva, I regret I do not have a kvass recipe.
But my dear friend I do have one for Okroshka 
as well as Hlodnik (ok ok is polish but is has BEETS! and is very common in russia)
Rassolnik
and my favorite botwinia
Also in Zenster’s thread he linked earlier I posted a different Ukranian Borsch recipe.
Ok quit screaming at me, here is the Okroshka recipe.
2 cups cold diced meat
3 tbsp. minced scallions
1 tsp. minced taragon
1 tbsp minced dill (optional)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Fresh ground pepper
3 tbsp sour cream
1 tsp mustard
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vinegar
2 small cucumbers, diced
1/2 dill pickle, diced
2 cups Consomme’ white or canned
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1/2 cup ice water
1 cup sparkling water
1 cup crushed ice
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
Any kind of meat can be used, beef, veal, ham, chicken, or duck or mix if you choose.
Begin by putting the minced scallion, tarragon, and dill in a large bowl. Addd the salt, a dash of pepper, then mash well with a wooden spoon. Now add mustard, sour cream, lemon juice, and vinegar. Stir thoroughly. Put in diced meat, the cucumbers and pickle, peeled and diced, the consomme’ the wine, and the ice water. Chill at least 4 hours. Add the sparkling water, the crushed ice and the hard-cooked eggs just before serving.
I have lots more soups and salads and desserts.
Let me know how it turns out for you.
Osip
Now THAT sounds like some good eating!
Buck The Diver <---- is gonna try that this weekend.
I’ve always loved beets. But then I’m half-slav, so it’s probably genetic ;).
Thanks for the recipe Eva, I’ll have to give that a shot ( might dispatch it to my father as well - he likes that sort of stuff ).
- Tamerlane
Canned beets have a strange taste. I liked the beets grown in my parents’ garden, but the beets served in the school cafeteria had such a funny taste that I couldn’t stand them.
I’m guessing that school cafeterias ruined many Americans’ appetite for beets.
My parents also cook the beet leaves and serve them like spinach. Good stuff!
Why do so many Americans hate beets?
Because of the merciless beetings they had to endure in school cafeterias.
Actually, at one time Americans loved them so much they were called the beet generation. They praised them in rhyme, and were known as the beet poets.
But as Eva’s borscht recipe calling for 2-3 pounds of meat shows, you can beet your meat. Or at least she can.
Don’t go making those beetle brows at me, Eva, you started this. I cannot be beet at this sort of thing, for I have no shame.
Seriously folks, I kid the sturdy root vegetables …
I am shocked, simply shocked, that no one has yet mentioned the all-time classic of beet literature, Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.
Beet lovers and haters alike may alter their beet perspective by reading it.
So does this mean I can separate you from half of your mushrooms? 
**Osip, ** thanks for the recipe. No *kvass, * though? I’ve never seen a Russian recipe that called for white wine. Not one of their agricultural strong points, although I guess they could co-opt some from the Georgians.
I like beets. I like them oven roasted, and I like the ones you buy in a jar that have a sweet & sour taste.
I’ve never had good borscht. My mom enjoys the jarred Manischewitz borscht, and its evil companion, schav. Nasty nasty stuff.
Pork Rind: Are you saying that people in New Zealand regularly eat beets on their sandwiches?? :eek: I’m all for cultural relativism and everything, but that’s just unacceptable.
Considering I once took a graduate course on the ‘Taxonomy of the Higher Fungi’ just for fun…
…I’d say no ;).
- Tamerlane
Well, if Zenster says borscht can be served hot, who amongst my potential guests is to say otherwise?
::goes to warm up some chicken stock and peel some beets::
I don’t think I have ever bought beets, but at a buffet or when someone has them, I like them.
I never even knew there was a hatred of beets in the USA until recently. Happened to mention them at work one day you would have thought I told people I ate animal feces from the look on their faces.
I am not a big vegetable eater, but I don’t dislike any vegetable either - except boiled cabbage. The smell of boiling cabbage is enough to make me leave a neighborhood.
I guess our culture has never gotten squarely behind the beet.
Ultimately though, I’m reminded of something Dave Chapelle said while visiting my school: “There’s this stereotype that all black people like fried chicken. We don’t like it because we’re black! We like it because it tastes good!”
I adore beets!!
I love them roasted. Borsht is divine. I make a lovely beet salad that is so easy it’s criminal. Nummy nummy! Beets are great!