2 000 years B.C.E. Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians knew beet, as vegetable and medicinal plant. However, its culture started only a thousand years later.

There was a Swiss chard’s description. While Europeans ate only leaves, Asiatic people already preferred tasty roots. Soon Europeans also started treating beet mainly as edible root.

Beet tops are a very valuable product, and our ancestors never considered them as siftings.

Beet was considered an exceptionally medicinal product at all times. Hippocrates considered it useful for patients’ treatment and included it in dozens of recipes. Beet ranks second to none as for iron and zinc content, and this means, is equally important for men and women. Beet also contains cobalt, necessary for vitamin B12 synthesis.

It takes first place among vegetables as for iodine content, and this is thyroid gland’s health, memory, vivacity and capacity for work… Besides a wonderful set of vitamins and minerals, beet contains substances, distinguishing it from other vegetables. One of them is betaine. This biologically active substance improves protein assimilation, thus, a small piece of meat, served up with beet garnish, can be compared to big beefsteak. Betaine also improves work of liver, so it is even extracted from beet and people create preparations based on it. The laziest ones can swallow it in the form of pills, but they still cannot replace real vinaigrette. By the way, unlike other vegetables, boiled beet is as useful, as raw one.

Organic acids and cellulose, contained in beet in big quantities, intensify gut motility, that is why beet and beet juice are good on an empty stomach – especially while atherosclerosis, as beet exceeds all vegetables as for iodine content. Cosmetologists also recommend drinking beet juice regularly. However, the biggest beet’s value is its participation in hematosis and improves blood.

Korean beet

500 g beet
3 garlic gloves
1/3 tea spoon black pepper
1/3 glass vegetable oil
1/3 glass vinegar
Salt to your taste

Instructions: grate beet, add grated garlic, pepper, and vinegar. Put on water bath for 20 minutes. Warm vegetable oil on a frying pan, add beet, mix, cool down and put in fridge for 12 hours. Try it, very tasty!

Beetroot soup

4-5 beets
2/3 glass red currant
1 1/2 l meat and vegetable broth
1/2 glass sour cream
1 table spoon flour
1-2 yolks
100 g ham or smoked foods
Salt, sugar, marjoram, spices to your taste

Instruction: Wash beet, bake or boil, remove peel, grate. Wash currant, grate, mix with broth, beet and sour cream (mix sour cream with flour beforehand). Boil during several minutes, filter. Mix with yolks in separate dish, pouring some broth and mixing constantly. You should do it quickly and carefully, to prevent yolks from curdling. Pour mixed yolks in soup, put ham cut in straws, season. Serve up with meat patties or baked potato.

Cotton cheese and beet fritters

500 g cotton cheese
3 beets
2 apples
1 glass flour
1 glass milk
2 eggs
1 table spoon sugar
40 g butter
1 glass sour cream
Salt to your taste

Instruction: peel and grate apples. Boil beet, cool down, peel and grate. Put apples, beet, and cotton cheese in a dish, add milk, eggs, sugar, and salt and mix everything carefully. Heat up frying pan and fry fritters on butter from both sides. Serve up sour cream to ready fritters.