Beetroot for us – so familiar, so “own”. In fact, several millennia before us, its healing properties and taste (especially beet tops!) Were the first to be appreciated by the Persians and the ancient Romans. Beet “sailed” to the Principality of Kiev from Byzantium in about the X-XI centuries, and then spread to the north, in the lands of Vladimir, Suzdal, Novgorod. For four centuries, by the XIV century, it gained popularity among our ancestors: numerous records speak about this, for example, in shop books and receipts and consumables of monasteries. What did you do with beets? It was baked in an oven and served for tea. They ate, sliced ​​in circles with ginger, before dinner, and the tops were added to soups. And, of course, cooked borscht, references to which date back to the 16th century. And already in the 20th century, beets became space food: in 1975, during the Apollo Soyuz test project, Soviet cosmonauts treated American astronauts in orbit with beetroot soup made of tubes.

For me, beets are truly “cosmic” food due to its amazing beneficial properties!

I love beets since childhood, especially as part of the borscht that my grandmother cooked, and vinaigrette – the only Soviet salad that I could eat, since everyone else was generously seasoned with my hateful mayonnaise. Both recipes (borsch and vinaigrette) are in the Live up! recipes. Continue reading →