Salad and beets

Here is L.H. Bailey on salad, in 1905: “Doubtless all vegetables ought to be fresh; but with salad plants the demand is imperative. A good salad cannot be made from wilted or stale plants. For this reason the best salads are practically prohibited to people who do not have their own gardens. The plants should be freshly picked within half an hour of mealtime.” This from The Principles of Vegetable Gardening, p.357. The book was donated by the Shaw family to the Belmont Historical Society--Herbert Shaw used it during his studies at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, now UMass Amherst, before he came home to run the Shaw Estate farm in Belmont.

As for those beets . . . After I sliced off the cloudy tops and roots I put a plastic bag over them and left them to sit on the cutting board for a day or two. Then, feeling that I was getting a grip on myself, I put them in a small saucepan with water and boiled them for half an hour. Then I drained them. Then I ignored them some more. Then I decided to pull myself together and eat them. I was going to heat them up and slice them with butter and paprika. However, by this time they were covered in a fascinating sticky substance, a stringy, sugary covering with the appearance of cheesecloth. So I put them in the compost bucket instead. I think you would say this was an awful waste of good beets, but to me it has the feeling of an experiment, or, perhaps, an investigation. There is a zucchini in the bottom drawer I have my eye on . . .