The Beetroot Incident

The Beetroot incident

It was a steamy, hot August Summer’s day, a rare thing in County Limerick, Ireland. One of those Summers that you believe all of your childhood Summers were like but it was probably only one or two. I was around 7 years old.

Even though I come from a large family I loved being by myself, day dreaming, exploring and wandering. One of my favourite things to do was to visit the vegetable garden which had been planted and lovingly cared for by my grandparents and my parents. We ‘the kids’ all had weeding jobs after school and throughout the holidays. It was a very boring job but had to be done. My Grandparents never used pesticides so little critters would be removed from the vegetable foliage and squished between fingers. The most disgusting to squish was the white cabbage caterpillar. I hasten to add I never participated in this necessary cruelty.

I would wander around completely alone with my thoughts, up and down between the drills. One of our many dogs was lolling in the high grass resting from the heat. Bees were humming, birds were singing, the silence broken only occasionally by a passing car, or an aeroplane so far overhead that it was sometimes just a speck, going to America, they were always going to America.

There was a variety of fruit bushes, black currants, red currants and gooseberries running along one side and then drills of onions, cabbages, potatoes, carrots and beetroot. The most delicious Summer dish was new potatoes, scrubbed and boiled, then mashed with butter, salt, pepper and scallions which are slightly milder in taste than onions, all from the garden. It was mouth watering.

There were also fruit trees, plums, apples and a beautiful tall pear tree, they were not in the garden but nearer to the house.

I liked to get a cabbage leaf and wrap an onion leaf inside it and have it as a snack, I learnt this trick from a school friend. This one particular day I thought I’d try beetroot. I pulled a smallish one and bit off the outside, spitting out the parts of skin that still had earth attached. I then proceeded to eat the middle, I liked it, it was earthy and sweet at the same time. I ate as much as I wanted and tossed the rest away. Eventually I got bored and headed out of the garden back up to the house. I saw my Mother in the kitchen window and smiled and waved to her, she didn’t wave or smile back but instead looked really worried, she was mouthing something to me but I couldn’t hear her, she ran outside and said ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph what happened to your face, it took me a moment to realise that it must be beetroot related and tried to explain, but by this stage she had worked herself up into major worry and had thought it was blood. Once it all became clear that I wasn’t badly injured, I got smacked on the bottom for worrying her. At least it was with her hand and not the wooden spoon which was used for more serious misdemeanors.