Les Cris de Paris, 1515 "my beautiful beets and my beautiful spinach"
‘Poiree’ is now translated as ‘swiss chard’, but in Cotgreve’s French/English dictionary of 1611 it is “Poiree: f. Beets, Looke Poree” – and the dictionary is search-able…..
Salad of ribs of beets
“The Italian Beete, and so likewise the last red Beete with great ribbes, are boyled, and the ribbes eaten in sallets with oyle, vinegar and pepper, and is accounted a rare kinde of sallet, and very delicate.”
- Parkinson, John. A Garden of Pleasant Flowers. 1629. p. 490.
Beets by the basketful, November 30th
In the great minds think alike…here’s more from the New York Times
So just how did beets become both Swiss and Chard? It’s all part of …..
The Secret Life of BEEtS.
Stay tuned – it’s BEET WEEK.
Tags: 17th century recipe, Beet Week, beets, cardoons, chard, cooking, John Parkinson, New York Times, oil, pepper, swiss chard
Interesting. Cassell’s dictionary translates poiree as ‘white beets’.
Also, it would show ‘beaux epinards’, a bit of language development.
‘white beets’ become another euphemism for Swiss chard – although I had a lovely French woman this summer point to my ‘bletes’ (the very same Swiss chard in the basket) – and now I can’t remember what she called the red Roman beetroot – but bletes are another garden herbs of the 16th and 17th century that are terribly well describe, in part I think, because they were so common.