78 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES 



serve. Spinach cooked in this way may be spread on 

 toast and surmounted by poached eggs. 



Spinach may be served whole by placing it, without 

 water, in a vessel surrounded by boiling water, for about 

 twenty minutes. Dry with a warm cloth and serve. 



BEETROOT 



Beet and spinach are allied plants, both belonging to 

 the order of Chenopodiaceae. Beet occurs wild as a 

 native of Britain, as well as of many parts of Europe, 

 Asia, and Africa. It was well known and cultivated by 

 the Greeks and Romans, by whom a small number of 

 garden varieties was recognised. Theophrastus, Aristotle 

 and Pliny all wrote concerning the plant, and described 

 its uses as food and medicine. 



Alexander Necham, master of St Albans' Grammar 

 School, and subsequently Abbot of Cirencester, pub- 

 lished in the twelfth century a little book " De Naturis 

 Rerum," in which he gives an account of the fruits, 

 herbs and flowers then grown in English gardens. He 

 refers to beetroot as being then in use, and the plant is 

 also included in the list of vegetables enumerated in the 

 survey, made in the ninth century, of the gardens of 

 the monastery of St Gall. 



Worlidge, speaking of beet, says: "This ordinary 

 Plant is by several made use of; it loves a fat and rich 

 Soyl ; it's usually sown in the Spring, and will come 

 up several years in the same ground, and may be planted 

 forth as Cabbages are." 



The beet was first cultivated for the sake of its sugar 

 at about the middle of the eighteenth century. 



To boil Beetroot 



The skin of beetroot must on no account be broken 

 before cooking, or the colour and the sugar will escape. 



