Checking out The Chioggia

Back in THIS POST we talked about planting Chioggia Beets for the first time this past fall.  Chioggia beets are an heirloom variety from Italy that made their way to the United States in the 1860’s.  They have the characteristic of red and white stripes, resembling a starlight mint.  They were are named after the fishing village in Italy from whence they originate.

It was time to harvest them and eat them in order to make room in the garden for some Chinese Long Beans I wanted to plant, so I walked out to the garden and pulled a few out of the ground.  I carried them inside and washed them off in the vegetable sink.  Looking at them from the outside, they resemble other beets we’ve grown, such as the Bull’s Blood and Detroit Dark Red varieties.

Chioggia Beet Roots

Tricia cut off one of the ends in order to begin chopping up for oven roasted beets using the recipe we described in this prior blog post: Roasting Beets  Once the end was cut off, well, that’s where the resemblance to “normal” beets ended.  The root was white inside with a bit of red showing up as well in the very center.

Taking a look inside

This is what we found when we cut into the beet!:

Looks like a Starlight Mint

Pretty cool, huh?  Supposedly they are supposed to be sweeter than normal beets, but after roasting them, I couldn’t tell any difference.  They tasted like… well, beets!  I’ll plant more of these next year as they taste good and look even better.

Another Chioggia Beet that is more red...  Very interesting looking