In his offbeat classic Jitterbug
Perfume, author Tom Robbins heaps lavish praise upon the beet. It is, he says, “the most intense of vegetables deadly serious the murderer returned to the scene of the crime.
The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon,
bearded, buried, all but fossilized.”
The novel goes on to describe a recipe for
immortality that includes, among other things, lots of sex and beets.
Beets are as earthy as a mouthful of dirt. Perhaps
that’s why, here in America, few contenders come close to
challenging the beet for the title of Least Favorite
Vegetable. Not broccoli, not spinach, not even yellow
summer squash inspires such vitriolic passion among its
detractors. Perhaps the offense is in the paradoxical earthy
sweetness of the beet, while the scarlet aftermath in our toilet
bowl sings of our marriage to the food chain in ways we’d
prefer to forget.
Meanwhile, if you ask people about their
favorite taste in the whole world, many will name
chocolate. Like the beet, chocolate is a food of passion. In the
movie Chocolat, for example, the heroine opens a
chocolate shop in a conservative, old-world Catholic village during Lent. The town’s leaders
begin a witch-hunt, denouncing her as a temptress. Near
the end of the story she succeeds in awakening the
long-suppressed passions of the town folk. Indeed, chocolate is
known in many circles as not only an aphrodisiac but as an
outright substitute for sex.
So here we are, discussing two passionate,
earth-toned foods, both of which demand to be taken seriously.
Perhaps you suspect where I’m going with this and are bracing for
a combination that seems even less likely than the union
of heaven and earth.
But how heavenly is the taste of pure chocolate?
Not very, unless heaven is a bitter place. Chocolate — the
roasted seed coat of the cacao plant — is made palatable
only when combined with sugar. Oftentimes that sugar
comes from beets, the world’s second source of the sweet
stuff, behind sugarcane.
I was on the phone with a farmer friend one
day while he was making dinner for his wife and their
crew of hungry women. While we spoke, he made a vat of
pesto and some French filet beans in a soy-garlic-ginger
sauce. All of a sudden he said, “Oh, I gotta go stir my
beet thing.” Next thing I knew, I was talking to a dial tone.
That night, one of the farmer’s hungry women brought me a sample of
said beet thing. It was gooey and moist, like fudge. It was sweet
and full of chocolate, like fudge. It tasted like fudge, even though
it was mostly grated beets. (It also contained chocolate
chips, cocoa powder, and butter. He cooked it on the stovetop.)
His wife was inspired by the possibility of chocolate
and beets. Over the weekend, she did some research of her
own, arriving at a dense oven-bar recipe, wherein a cup of flour
is mixed with a cup of cocoa powder. To this is added a
mixture of one cup grated beets, two eggs, fresh raspberries,
a little water, and a melted mixture of two tablespoons
butter and a cup of chocolate chips. This substantial wad is
mixed and baked in a greased pan at 325 degrees for about half
an hour. The product is a color that would make Tom
Robbins blush: a combination of red and brown that is dark as
night and shiny as ebony.
Not wanting to be outdone and aware that Robbins
was also a huge mayonnaise fan, I devised, tested, tweaked,
and perfected the following recipe for chocolate beet
mayonnaise cake.
You think I’m crazy but wait! My tasters were
thoroughly blown away by this perfectly moist and dense
chocolate experience and reluctant to believe it contained
beets and mayo. You, my friend, will like this cake.
Combine the following ingredients in the following order: two cups flour; one teaspoon
baking soda; one teaspoon baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon salt;
1/2 cup cocoa powder; one cup sugar; 1/2 cup chocolate
chips. Stir the dry ingredients before adding one teaspoon
vanilla; 3/4 cup half & half, one cup mayo, and two cups
shredded beets (boiled 10 minutes in one cup water, until
tender, and drained). Bake it in a greased pan at 350 until a
plunged fork comes out clean (about 30 minutes). Cool.
For the frosting, combine 1/2 cup each of sour
cream, cream cheese, and confectioner’s sugar in a bowl. Beat it
all together until smooth. Beat two egg whites until stiff,
fold them into the frosting, chill 30 minutes, and frost.
Tom Robbins, eat your heart out.