The Description.

            1. The common white Beet hath great broad leaves, smooth, and plain: from which rise thick crested or chamfered stalks: the flowers grow along the stalks clustering together, in shape like little stars which being past, there succeed round and uneven prickly seed. The root is thick, hard, and great.

            2. There is another sort like in shape and proportion to the former, saving that the leaves of this be streaked with red here and there confusedly, which setteth forth the difference.

Fig. 516. Red Roman Beet (3)

            There is likewise another sort hereof, that was brought unto me from beyond the seas, by that courteous merchant Master Lete, before remembered, the which hath leaves very great, and red in colour, as is all the rest of the plant, as well root, as stalk, and flowers, full of a perfect purple juice tending to redness: the middle rib of which leaves are for the most part very broad and thick, like the middle part of the Cabbage leaf, which is equal in goodness with the leaves of Cabbage being boiled. It grew with me 1596, to the height of viii cubits, and did bring forth his rough and uneven seed very plentifully: with which plant nature doth seem to play and sport hereself: for the seeds taken from that plant, which was altogether of one colour, and sown, doth bring forth plants of many and variable colours, as the worshipful gentleman Master John Norden can very well testify, unto whom I gave some of the seeds aforesaid, which in his garden brought forth many other of beautiful colours.

The Place.

            The Beet is sown in gardens: it loveth to grow in a moist and fertile ground. The ordinary white Beet grows wild upon the sea-coast of Thanet and divers other places by the sea, for this is not a different kind as some would have it.

The Time.

             The fittest time to sow it is in the spring: it flourisheth and is green all summer long, and likewise in winter, and bringeth forth his seed the next year following.

The Names.

            The Latins have named it Beta: the Germans, Maugolt: the Spaniards, Aselgas: the French, de la Porée, des Iotes, and Bects. Theophrastus saith, that the White Beet is surnamed Sicula, or of Sicily: hereof cometh the name Sicla by which the barbarians, and some apothecaries did call the Beet; the which word we in England do use, taken for the same.

The Nature.

            The White Beets are in moisture and heat temperate, but the other kinds are dry, and all of them abstersive: so that the White Beet is a cold and moist pot-herb, which hath joined with it a certain salt and nitrous quality, by reason whereof it cleanseth and draweth phlegm out of the nostrils.

The Virtues.

            A. Being eaten when it is boiled, it quickly descendeth, looseth the belly, and provoketh to the stool, especially being taken with the broth wherein it is sodden: it nourisheth little or nothing, and is not so wholesome as Lettuce.

            B. The juice conveyed up into the nostrils doth gently draw forth phlegm, and purgeth the head.

            C. The great and beautiful Beet last described may be used in winter for a salad herb, with vinegar, oil, and salt, and is not only pleasant to the taste, but also delightful to the eye.

            D. The greater red Beet or Roman Beet, boiled and eaten with oil, vinegar and pepper, is a most excellent and delicate salad: but what might be made of the red and beautiful root (which is to be preferred before the leaves as well in beauty as in goodnes) I refer unto the curious and cunning cook, who no doubt when he hath had the view thereof, and is assured that it is both good and wholesome, will make thereof many and divers dishes, both fair and good.