Got end-of-winter produce? Try a grated beet and carrot salad

by Emily Matchar, Posted Mar 18th 2008 @ 11:00AM

The beet has always been my bête noire, the last food I genuinely hated in all forms. I wanted to like beets, I really did. They're so pretty. The stunning magenta of borscht, baby red and yellow beets laying like rare gemstones on a salad plate.

But I always thought they tasted like sweet dirt, with an undertone of something rotten, a whiff of burps and garbage pail. After college I lived with a girl who ate beets out of the can, enjoyed beet-and-goat cheese sandwiches piled as high as corned beef on a Katz's Deli rueben. I had to turn my head.

But it wasn't until I had a grated beet and carrot salad in vinaigrette at a bistro in Paris's Belleville neighborhood last fall that I began to understand the magic. Something about the strong vinaigrette modified the beet's rotten-ish sweetness, brought out the earthy flavors. I'm about to try this recipe, for Clotilde's Grated Carrots and Beets from the venerable Chocolate and Zucchini. Damned if that girl couldn't make a decaying sardine look like a delicacy.

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Filed Under: On the Blogs, Ingredients
Tags: Beet, Blogs, Carrot, france, French, Salad, vegetables