Isn’t this so-called Nick Clegg? Why is he flogging Norwegian beetroot? As if he weren’t in enough trouble.
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Isn’t this so-called Nick Clegg? Why is he flogging Norwegian beetroot? As if he weren’t in enough trouble.
A Bad Guide
One thing we liked about Australian cuisine was its beetroot-with-everything attitude, especially as part of that national delicacy “burger the lot”.
plain or pickled?
Ah, very shrewd, C. That was part of their beauty: not pickled. Beetroot in Britain is usually pickled and that’s not to my taste (though pickled onions are, as it happens).
I trust all present have read Jitterbug Perfume.
Meantersay that was the occasion for my learning to like (unpickled) beets, which I had avoided until then, for reasons unknown.
I often think of Jitterbug Perfume when I contemplate beets (beetroot). Lately I’ve been roasting them a lot. Beets taste like the soil to me. I’m not saying that’s why I like them.
I’m certainly not endorsing beetroot, by the way. I don’t particularly like it and it makes the most frightful stains.
That sounds like a fun book, Stu. I’ve never read anything by Tom Robbins, because I don’t like his name (it reminds me of someone else). I can see I’ll have to get over it.
Yes, before roasting it I peel it, which inevitably means stains on the counter, and also on the floor when bits fall down. I find that it’s easy enough to wipe up, but my hands are red for days. Not to mention my feces, if you don’t mind me mentioning it.
Just eat asparagus, Ø , to distract yourself from your faeces.
Yes, we’ve been eating a lot of that, too; it’s the time of year for it. Sometimes I grill it on a charcoal fire. Someone once told me that the effect you are referring to does not apply to all people. At first I imagined they meant that not every human body is capable of creating that odor, but apparently it’s that not everyone can smell it.
When I wrote “if you don’t me mentioning it”, I was not thinking of the barbaric US simplified spelling, but I do apologize.
Please don’t apologise. We can discuss baesj here no matter what the spelling, and I was interested by your first point. Also the one about the asparagus, I think most people want to know these things.
Last night in the garden we had salted herring with the beetroot in the photograph for dinner (plus sour cream, courgettes and tiny Turkish onions). It was very good, I take back my criticism of beetroot.
Poo-poo-pee-doo.
I think I’ve seen somewhere that Norwegian bæsj is from PGmc. *barzijan-, which would seem to imply that is should properly be spelled bers. OTOH, Swedish bais suggests otherwise. And I’ve no idea where it comes from, etymologically speaking. There’s the complicating factor of the rhyme word æsj — part “nanny word” for bæsj, part expression of mild disgust — that I think really is related to Eng. arse, either straightforwardly or by some derivation like arzijan- “make arse” or something. It doesn’t help that in the traditional (undanified) Eastern Norwegian dialects that are the usual source of Norwegian colloquialisms, both ls and rs are ʃ and both a and e becomes æ before both of them. (Halsen “the neck” is pronounced [¹hæ(:)ʃ.n], fersken “peach” [¹fæʃ.kn].)
Thanks, Trond, all useful (for me anyway), interesting information.
I’m not even sure how arse became ass in the US (unless it was the other way round), but bæsj sounds much more like ass.
Enjoy beetroot while you can. When the bees die out, there will only be synthetic troot.
American ass is just non-rhotic, I think.
Last week I saw Bee Movie. I found it funny, clever and non-trivial. It’s hard to keep those three things running simultaneously, but that is my main ambition in life.
I.e. to carry on the work of Quentin Crisp and Luhmann for posterity.
“unless it was the other way round”: you’ve forgotten your Chaucer, Crown.
P.S. “salted herring”: I thought you’d become a veggie?
Late to the party.
The wild asparagus is almost over here, but it keeps raining…so we have just a few spears for garnish on most salads at the moment (whatever K finds when he walks the dogs or goes out for kindling – yes we are still having fires. It is unbelievably cold for late May, nearly June.
Beetroot. Some time ago [Jan 2011] I put a photo and recipe up on FaceBook. My father’s pickled beetroot is nothing like typical English pickled beetroot I’ve encountered.
To wit:
Boiled until just tender beets/beetroot, the skins slipped off (messy job), then sliced and loaded into jars interleaved with sliced onions. Sprinkle in a teaspoon or so of peppercorns and caraway seeds. Then a syrup of 50%/50% vinegar and sugar (by volume), which has been boiled for 5-10 min. with a dash of salt, is poured over them to fill the jars. (The beets can be cold, but the syrup should be hot when poured. Put a spoon in the jar to prevent it cracking.) You can start eating them the next day. Unopened jars will keep “forever”, and the open one can sit on the table until you finish it.
Great with sliced ham, salads…and beautifully colourful.
[copied from an old FB post that has photos http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1771374734260&set=pb.1536004550.-2207520000.1369732860.&type=3&theater , maybe ; if a link is permitted…]
English people who don’t like English pickled beetroot often like this.
I want to send everyone samples…
Also, speaking of smells, on a less appetizing note, I understand (and believe) that certain components of men’s smelly feet can be perceived only by women of childbearing age – that is before puberty and after menopause men’s socks and shoes are less unappealing to their associated females.
I have been unable to intuit an evolutionary advantage for this unless we are supposed to track our mates like dogs – er, bitches. Although maybe it’s just something that applies to all mammals so we get our share?
Does anyone know about this?
PS Y’all probably know that beetroot stems and leaves make a fabulous omelette – just sauté the stems a bit in advance (they take longer) then add the leaves and proceed as for a spinach omelette.
Now I’m hungry.
I’m not supposed to eat salt either, never mind herring. Actually, I eat fish. Well I’ve got to eat something and I don’t eat carbohydrates (on medical grounds, not because I feel sorry for them). Pescetarian is a more accurate name, but I think it’s a silly word so I don’t use it. There’s an etymology put about by the Vegetarian Society (founded in Ramsgate in 1840-something) that vegetarian comes from Greek via Latin meaning vigourous or healthy, i.e. nothing to do with vegetables, which sounds self-defeating. The OED and other dictionaries aren’t buying it.
Thank you very much for the beetroot information, especially the omelette. I’ll try it. Lovely pictures too.
About the smelly feet: don’t wash them with soap. Then they don’t smell. This is one of the things they teach you in the army, apparently.
No carbohydrates? You poor sod.
I’m miffed enough that I now have to be avoid brazil nuts and hazelnuts: a ban on a major food group would really brown me off.
It just means I eat a hell of a lot of salads, cheese and eggs. What’s wrong with brazil & hazel nuts?
There are some sort of “roll mops” available here (in the German chain “Lidl”) but I only remember herring – pickled? salted? from the amazing Seattle restaurant…it was years ago and I was a child – I think it might have been called “King Olaf’s”.
Your supper is exciting-sounding. Tiny Turkish onions?
Photograph the FOOD. Dogs first, then food. Or goats first, then dogs, then food… Or…
please?
Actually I have pickled my own herring, but I got so tired of scraping off the scales that I have mostly stopped. Maybe I’ll start again. (Another “pickling” with a lot of sugar in it, innit?)
I had been having occasional stomach trouble for some time when I came across, in Jim Watson’s book on DNA, the remark that some people are upset by a protein in brazil nuts. (It wasn’t mentioned in the WKPD article on brazil nuts). That’s when I realised that my tummy upsets following nut-scoffing weren’t caused by the odd bad nut but were intrinsic to the brazil. Experimentation since has shown that hazels can upset me too. Walnuts, almonds, pistachios, coconuts are OK, as are peanuts and cashews.
Happily half a brazil or a single hazel does little or no harm, it’s eating them on the scale of after-dinner-at-Christmas-time that causes the problem.
Anyway now I don’t put brazils or hazels in when I mix my muesli.
I read The Double Helix when it came out, in 1968, when I would have been about 15. Sadly I can’t still remember the brazil-nut reference, but I enjoyed that book at the time.
The tiny onions – they’re about 1cm in diameter – come from the Turkish shop, I’m not sure they really come all the way from Turkey. In fact most of their stuff that’s not vegetables originates in Germany. We grilled them (the onions) in the oven, in my opinion in way too much oil.
Stu, I meant to say that I’m going to try to find that bee film at the library. I don’t like cartoons but it’s a good cast. I like Renée Zellweger, at least I do as long as I’m not confusing her with someone else.
Rollmöpse are lengths of herring marinated in vinegar and salt for 35 days (see WiPe), then wrapped around a piece of pickle and pinned together with a poothtick. I wouldn’t put it past today’s German consumers to expect that the marinade contained sugar. I find that Rollmöpse can be pretty disgusting unless they are made with the best ingredients and thus are expensive. But I suppose that’s true of anything that leaves the kitchen in a state other than the one in which it entered.
Ah, I don’t mean The Double Helix (one of the best books of the twentieth century, in my view) but this ‘un: http://www.amazon.co.uk/DNA-Secret-Life-James-Watson/dp/0099451840
P.S. the index is lousy so you won’t find Brazil nut (nor nut, Brazil) in it.
P.P.S. I was told as an undergraduate that if you pick up a British book and an American book on the same topic, you’ll find that the American usually has better diagrams and the British always has a better index. Nearly fifty years of experience says that this was correct.
Beets: to me too they taste like soil. There is only one way I like them: made into borscht (a word with variable spelling), a soup which uses beets and carrots. Borscht with a nice helping of yogurt instead of sour cream is delicious as well as very healthy.