Saturday, December 17, 2005

Vegetables: Cylindra Beets

Picked these up at the Grand Lake Farmers' Market
today, where the folks at Tip Top Farms described them as "Italian Beets". Googling for Italian beets mostly returns results on chioggas. So, to some extent I am speculating that these are cylindras because, well, they appear to be cylindrical.

My childhood experience with beets was limited to the canned variety. I disliked them. Apparently beets still have a bad rap though. As a result, seed hawkers resort to the nutrition pitch:
Double duty crop. Beets return double your money – the roots are delicious and nutritious, while the greens are edible and attractive.
When you are hawking seeds for an unusually shaped beet, still and yet more inventiveness is required:
Elongated 6-8 in. beets, with more uniform slices than round types.

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