Respect for vegetables or You can't beat a beet

Apparently I hurt a lot of feelings with my joke about not liking beets in my post about Patty Hearst the other day.

"I don't like beets," I wrote, "and I don't like anyone who does."

Now it's true that I don't like beets, never have, never will, but the bit about not liking anyone who does...well, I thought I was on safe ground there because it never occurred to me that there are people who actually like beets.

I knew there are people who serve and eat beets.  But I always figured they were all just doing what happened in the Mannion household when I was a kid and turnips or liver showed up on the dinner table.  Somebody's mother was convinced they were good for you and made them with your health and well-being in mind and not your gastronomical enjoyment.  Beets, like turnips and liver and getting grounded, were signs you were loved and cared for even if they all felt like the opposite.

I suppose I'm going to hear from fans of turnips and liver now.

Borscht is something different.  Like corned beef and cabbage, haggis, and grits, nobody eats the stuff because it tastes good.  They eat it because they loved their grandmothers and honor their memories.

There I go again.

I'm sorry.  I'm sorry to all you beet lovers too, especially you, Rana.  From here on out, I promise to try not to disrespect beets again.

But I have a problem.

I don't like vegetables generally.  In fact, I hate them.  And I'm glad I hate them, because if I liked them, I'd eat them, and I just hate them.

Ok, sometimes I do eat them.  I'm lucky.  The blonde is a very good cook and she can make vegetables not taste like vegetables.  On the other hand, back in the spring she joined a farm co-op and now goes out early every Saturday morning to pick up (and sometimes pick herself, the farmer puts you to work and makes you earn the right to buy his vegetables) our share of this week's harvest.  Every Saturday morning when I stumble into the kitchen for my first pot of coffee I'm confronted by the sight of a table loaded with an array of recently slaughtered vegetables laid out like the left overs from an alien autopsy.

Harder to take the look of all this...this...cellulose!...is the blonde's conviction that I want to hear all about what it is and how good it is for me.

What I'm saying is that from time to time I just have to express my disgust and dismay at the whole idea of any food that winds up on my plate mainly on the grounds that it's good for me.  Beets are...were...my favorite synechdoche for the Clean Your Plate, Young Man, There Are Children Starving in Africa School of Culinary Delight.

But now that I know I have so many beet fans among my readers I need a new vegetable to pick on.

One that's even more universally despised than I thought beets were.

I'm thinking lima beans, and there's something called bok choi that the blonde says I've tried but I can't imagine that's true because I would never eat anything with a name like the sound I'd make if it went down the wrong way.  But I'm open to suggestions.

Comments

[Thomas]

Bitter melon.

[Ian Gray]

I understand if you don't like beets by themselves, but good borscht is one of the best soups around.

The only trouble is that you look like an axe-murderer after you make it, as I found out a couple of years ago when I made it for the first time.

Borscht. Mmmm.

But to each their own.

[Rana]

*laughs*

I forgive you.

But - brace yourself - I like turnips and liver and lima beans too. And grits (with butter and maple syrup!).

Never had haggis, so I can't comment on that one.

Radishes, now... I could get behind a boycott of radishes, especially raw ones. Blech.

(I do think some of this is indeed habit, or misguided notions about nutrition, but I think also it's often that adults forget that what tastes fine to jaded adult tastes (beer, brussel sprouts (yes! I like them too!), coffee...) tastes horrible to children's palates.

When I was a kid, my favorite foods were shrimp, cheesecake, vanilla ice cream, and Kix covered with sugar. These days, I need a bit more "vim" in my food.

[Michael Berry]

Beets are evil. When I left my mother's house, I swore I would never another beet, and I've remained true to my word. She used to serve them boiled and buttered.

I just experienced a full-body shiver.

[actor212]

You know what sucks?

Kumquats.

But not as much as lutefisk.

[iamcoyote]

Put me down for liking turnips, liver and lima beans as well. And I love radishes! I always have a bowl of them in water in the fridge for snacking. Also, I like pickled beets best. Yummy!

The veggie that turns my stomach is green pepper - and the red ones and yellow ones. I can't eat any food that has peppers as an ingredient, no matter how finely they're chopped, nor can I pick them out of a salad, because the taste is still there. Believe me, I'll know if a green pepper was in the kitchen while you cooked something else for dinner! I also cannot eat anything with large chunks of onion. That's all about the texture; if the onion's pureed, I'll use it. Can't make a good soup without real onions, can you?

[hamletta]

I'm with ya on the lima beans. They are vile.

Haven't eaten beets since I was little. My mom used to serve them a lot, and I liked them alright. The canned ones were kind of sweet. But I swear I remember her serving them in some kind of cream sauce once. They looked like they were swimming in Pepto-Bismol.

[DaveH]

...okra...
Pure slime, really.

[Doghouse Riley]

I ate a kumquat once to be nice to a girlfriend's father. Broke up with her the next day.

Brussels sprouts. I won't sit at the same table with them. Or in the same building.

[the mudshark]

call any vegetable
call it by name
and the vegetable will _respond_ to you

[Molly, NYC]

I hate to eat beets too. But I think they're very pretty, as cooked vegetables go. Pity about the flavor.

[Batocchio]

I like a good borscht, but living in Russia helps for that. (I was actually thinking of making some!) I wasn't as crazy about their cabbage soup.

You're making me think of that old SCTV sketch, "Beauty and the Beets."

Some vegetables I can only eat in a soup, or in small quantities mixed with other stuff. Cauliflower, lima beans and bok choi. I will say, though, I like veggies better than I was a kid, but apparently some of our taste buds die off as we reach adulthood...

[lynnie]

Do you eat vegetables now? My kids both hate them and I have little luck fooling them into eating them. I have a lot of guilt over this. But every now and then I meet a seemingly healthy adult who tells me he doesn't eat vegetables and never has, and I think maybe it's not such a big deal.

With the exception of the slimy ones, I love 'em all.

[julia]

Roasted beets in balsamic vinaigrette are actually pretty good. Brussel sprouts, though, I can't be having with. I feel as if I should like them - I like most mustardy greens - but I think of them as mushy rotted-tasted sulfur bombs.

I suspect this has to do with my mom, who has many lovely qualities, almost all of which express themselves outside the kitchen.

[Kathleen]

Who would guess a discussion about vegetables would be so compelling? Only when you're leading the way, Lance. Here's my two cents: beets are so sweet. And cold beet soup with buttermilk is the most beautiful color. Seriously, the most beautiful.

But you've got me thinking. Lots of people dislike me: I know that. Often, it seems to me that I've somehow given them a much more distasteful impression than any kumquat. Why? How? If I could figure it out, I'd change. Possibly, my entire problem, subliminal but constant, is that deep appreciation I have for beet sugar and that fabulous color.

Henceforth, I'm denouncing the vegetable.