My customers have been asking me for a black/almost purple beet. I can't find it in any of my seed catalogs. Anyone have any idea what they are asking for? They are talking about the root, not the leaves.
Black beets (variety)
Quote from Calalily :
My customers have been asking me for a black/almost purple beet. I can't find it in any of my seed catalogs. Anyone have any idea what they are asking for? They are talking about the root, not the leaves.
Not sure this is what you're looking for (Googled "black beet root"):
http://www.medwynsofanglesey.co.uk/shop/prod_45.html
I think these would require some breeding to bring the size up.
"Purple beetroot" produced similarly unpromising results seed-wise, though it does seem an awful lot of people consider purple to be the natural color of beets (rather than red).
Interesting stuff on beets here (that would relate to dark color):
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=49
One of the searches, on "beet variety pigment", brought up the following interesting article:
http://labplus.co.kr/tech/upload/Betacyanin_4.pdf
There's also an article here that sounds most promising...but you must pay to get it:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa.899/full
I think you may want to keep in mind that there is a large and growing demand for beets as a source of both natural food coloring and in extract form as a potential commercial source of nutritional antioxidant supplements. Just because you are able to find seeds of a "super-dark" beet does not in any way indicate it is palatable. Frequently breeding work that pushes the development of one characteristic does so at the expense of others. (Like tomatoes that are tough enough to ship, for example.)
You may also want to point out to your friends that research indicates the pigments are destroyed by cooking, so that bringing the beets just to fork-tender rather than cooking them till soft may have far more influence on the final pigment content than variety selection.
-Rich
Rich, thanks for the links. I found the one I was looking for last night at Baker Creek seeds. It is called Rouge Crapaudine and from talking to them, this is the one my customers want. It is ugly but super delicious tasting. It is actually dark purple instead of black but is often called a black beet. It loves it dry so should do well here.
The description says "almost black" flesh, but in the picture the flesh doesn't look any darker than most common deep red varieties... But, hey, the customer is always right, yes?
-Rich
Rich, I saw the same thing and was thinking even Red Ace looks darker! Since it was called "black" I was at least expecting a very dark purple/maroon color.
Now the skin definitely looks black. But who eats the skin?
-Rich