Feel the Beet: The Most Fascinating Woman You've Never Heard Of
5/5/202645 min
For those who like its earthy flavor, the humble beet can do a lot for a salad or a soup. But could it help end slavery? In the 1800s, one woman believed it could—and she wasn't just any old woman. This episode, meet Lydia Maria Child, who wrote the first children's periodical magazine, the first New England historical novel, and one of America's first successful self-help books—all before she turned thirty, in an era where women were still considered property. This episode, we've got the fascinating story of why she bet big on beets, as well as how, more than a century later, Wolfgang Puck and Martha Stewart paired this much maligned vegetable with goat cheese to spark today's beet renaissance. Meanwhile, for the haters among us: is it possible to de-beet the beet, and get rid of that earthy flavor altogether? Listen in now as we meet the astonishing Lydia Maria Child, in the curious tale of the beet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsIrwin Goldman· Guest0:01
[instrumental music plays] Okay, so first taste this one and see what you think. This is like a, sort of your typical... Is this gonna be too painful for you to do this?
Cynthia Graber· Host0:15
It's okay.
Irwin Goldman· Guest0:16
[laughs] I hate to ask you to do this.
Cynthia Graber· Host0:17
It's okay.
Irwin Goldman· Guest0:18
This is really- I suffer for Gastropod.
Nicola Twilley· Host0:20
[instrumental music plays] What are we forcing Cynthia to taste? What dreadful, horrifying, repulsive thing could we possibly be making her eat for your delight and entertainment?
Cynthia Graber· Host0:32
It is, dear listeners, a beet. Yes, I am one of those people who recoils from beet salad, borscht, basically anything dark red and earthy. I am indeed Cynthia, Cynthia Graber, and you're listening to Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history.
Nicola Twilley· Host0:47
Whereas I am Nicola Twilley, lover of beets, which I grew up calling beetroot, but really, I'll take it under any name. This episode, we get into why on earth anyone would hate such a delicious vegetable and how one beet breeder is aiming to change that.
Cynthia Graber· Host1:03
We are also telling the story of one of the most inspiring and fascinating women I'd never heard of before. She was an early radical abolitionist, a wildly successful novelist and children's magazine writer, and America's first sugar beet farmer.
Nicola Twilley· Host1:19
Yes, sugar beets are beets too, which was a surprise to me. Listen on and all will be revealed.
Cynthia Graber· Host1:25
This episode is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the public understanding