Harvard Beets

I think you have cottoned on now to my love LOVE of beetroot.  If you haven't, then you haven't been reading my blog for long enough.  I quite simply adore beets.   A week ago I was gifted with some lovely beetroot by a friend! We thoroughly enjoyed them!  I have been trying to spread my beetroot posts out so that you don't get them all in one week, so here is the last of my beetroot posts!

Harvard Beets has to be one of my absolute ways of enjoying beetroot. Back where I come from in Canada, you can buy tins of Harvard Beets in the vegetable aisles and I always used to have several tins of them in the cupboard during the winter months for whenever a craving hit me!

Homemade are infinitely better however!  They are somewhat of a New England tradition, New England being the North Eastern States of America . . .  consisting of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and Massachussets.  I guess it is only natural that they would also be popular in Nova Scotia seeing as they are very close to each other. 

So what is the actual history of Harvard Beets? How did they begin? We can't really say for sure. Some say they earned the name for the way their deep red color mimicked the Harvard Crimson football jersey hue. Others say they originated in a tavern in England named “Harwood” and somewhere along the way the name was mispronounced in America until it became “Harvard.”  So you see, there is a somewhat, if ambiguous, English connection . . .  which totally justifies me sharing the recipe here!

Originally the beets were cooked only in a sauce made from vinegar and sugar.  The addition of cornflour (cornstarch) to thicken the sauce is definitely a 20th century addition.  I think I would love them either way.  My recipe comes from the Fanny Farmer Cooking School Cookery Book, 1975 Edition.

 

This is one of the books I cut my culinary teeth on and I have worn out three copies through the years, my later ones having been edited by the late Marion Cunningham.  Its just the best cookbook and one I have turned to again and again through the years.  The Harvard Beet Recipe is the best.

*Harvard Beets*

Serves 4

Printable Recipe 

Tender cubes of beetroot in a delicious sweet and sour sauce. 

50g sugar (1/4 cup)

1 tsp cornflour (cornstarch)

30ml cider vinegar (1/8 cup)

30ml water (1/8 cup)

3 medium beetroots, cooked and cubed (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 TBS butter

salt and pepper to taste 

Whisk the sugar and cornflour together in a small saucepan.  Whisk in the vinegar and water.  Bring to the boil, whisking continuously, and then boil for 5 minutes.  Remove from the heat and stir in the cooked beetroot.  Let stand for half an hour.  Add the butter and reheat to the boiling point.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Serve immediately.

 

Fannie Farmer was a New England woman who wrote the original Boston Cooking School Cookery Book as it was known at first,  in 1896. It was the first cookbook of its kind, introducing standardized measurements at a time when nobody used them, and was considered to be a very comprehensive book, including essays on housekeeping, canning, cleaning, canning and drying fruits, and nutritional information.  At first the publisher Little & Brown did not expect that it would do very well and so it was published at Ms Farmer's own expense. The book was so popular in America, so thorough, and so comprehensive that cooks would refer to later editions simply as the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and it is still available in print over 100 years later.  If you don't have a copy, I highly recommend you get one!  I don't think you will ever regret adding this to your cooking library.  Like I said, I have worn out three copies!  In any case, I hope you will try Harvard Beets and enjoy them as much as we do!  Bon Appetit!