How Pale Is My Borscht

[desperance]

I made borscht in the slow cooker overnight, and it's really odd how all the colour has leached out of the beetroot. The borscht is in fact not pale, it is redolently ruby, but the chunks of beet are positively pallid.

Tastes good, though. In my head I have invented a fancy version, where you get a bowl of the-ingredients-chunked-up-in-the-stock, much as it is now, only within that bowl is a little bowl of deep-fried bread, and within that is a liquidised version of the same soup. Different colour, different texture, the same flavours but with a totally different mouth-feel. How's that for froufy? I shoulda bina chef...

I shouldabin anything but a writer. Have been unaccountably depressed & inadequate for twenty-four hours now. Not even playing with the new toy. Nothing to write, nothing to do. Bleah.

Comments

[julesjones]

Well, I must be starting to get over an unfortunate mental association, since I didn't start feeling sick at the mere mention of borscht. But I'm not going to think too hard about the description of the fancy version.

(I started getting migraine a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, this coincided with my first encounter with borscht. I know that it's just a coincidence, but try telling that to my lizard brain...)

[devonellington.livejournal.com]

I hope someday you'll write a cookbook. Your recipes are fabulous, you're one of the best cooks I know. You can sprinkle in passages from your novels and stories and add a flash fiction or two.

It'll be a best seller and get more sales for your backlist! ;)

I hope you feel better soon. I know how hard those Blue Days are.

Love you.

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

The Doukhobor ladies in Grand Forks BC who taught me how to make borscht always said that the beet was only put in for flavouring, and was removed before serving. They didn't say why, but that's probably it. They put the beets in whole or coarsely chopped for easy retrieval. 'Sgotta have dill weed, though. Not seeds; the feathery frondy bits dried. I think that's added when the beet bits are removed.

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

The only reference I previously had to Doukhobors was in this song by Pete Seeger (written by Malvina Reynolds).

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Could be, I guess - once you've got the colour and flavour out, there's an argument for removing the object. I've certainly seen recipes that say to do that. Others that want it grated, others that leave it in chunks as I do. I like the crunch of it, and I wasn't really troubled about the colour, it was just unexpected and interesting. It's the first time I've slow-cooked it overnight.

And yup, I can do dill. My own weed, in the summer; it dies off winter-time, but the Asian store up the road always has it fresh.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

I spent years trying to duplicate the borscht my father made (beets cooked until mushy, thank you, so of course they were pale) but never could get the right balance of sweet and tart. I think he used lemon juice and honey. We ate it hot with sour cream in winter, and cold with cucumbers and ice cubes in summer.