My sense of "seasons" is still off after nine years. When and where I grew up, in the Canadian prairies, cherries were ripe in July for three weeks. Apples, crabapples, pears and peaches in August. Corn was ready near the end of the month and into the first weeks of September. Pumpkins were harvested in October.
When I moved to New York I was shocked to see that "all" fruits and vegetables were available year round. Or at least, what looked like fruits and vegetables. The right color, the right size and almost no difference between the taste of the plastic wrap and the stuff inside.
I got used to this over time and made a conscious effort to buy local produce at farmers markets and the like. But in NYC you can go broke doing this and I soon learned to lower my expectations and wait until the summer when would visit family and I could indulge myself in new potatoes, green beans, giant fresh blueberries and field tomatoes.
If we went in August, my mother was always busy canning fruit. It was not unusual for her to be picking through 40 pounds of apricots or blackberries to make jam or jelly. And on very special occasions she would find a cache of Saskatoon berries (varietal of wild blueberry) and make a pie. Absolute heaven.
Two years ago, before Covid, I went to see Mom in the summer and she wanted to make pickled beets. This is no minor undertaking. The beets must be harvested at just the right time so they are small and sweet. Then they must be thoroughly cleaned and trimmed and parboiled. When they are still scalding hot the peels are removed by hand - basically slipped over the root. This requires asbestos hands and it has always been my job since I was a kid. While my brothers played football and ran into each other, I sat on the back porch peeling.
In retrospect, I was the lucky one.
Now I live where most fruits and vegetables are available year round and they are amazing. Yet, the notion of one harvest a year is something I carry with me and I often look at new potatoes in January and think - nah.
At the Shuk last week they had golden beets, long red beets that looked like sweet potatoes, white beets and pink skinned beets. I didn't know what to choose so I went with the unusual ones - the pink skins with variegated innards.
And unlike my Mom, I didn't need to "put these up" to last the whole winter. So I passed on making 40 pounds of beets. I used two.
BT's Very Quick Pickled Beets
Ingredients:
2-4 large, very firm beets (2 for 1 meal, 4 for leftovers)
1/2 cup (100 grams) white sugar
1 cup (240 ml) white vinegar
1 cup (480 ml) water
3 whole cloves (optional)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Directions:
Peel beets and cut into 8ths
Add sugar and vinegar and cloves to saucepan
Place on low flame and leave until dissolves
Add water and salt
Bring liquid to boil
Add beets
Lower flame to medium and cook for 15 minutes
Using a slotted spoon remove beets and place in ice bath
Leave 2-3 minutes
Discard water
Place beets in refrigerator for 1 hour
Serve
Enjoy! !בתיאבון
A lost way of making beets. What can I say, the tradition lives on!