Beetroot: The Original Aphrodisiac

Beetroot? Wooh! Add cheap industrial vinegar and far too much caraway and sugar, with the sole aim of colouring the mixed salad and anything else on your plate in a frightening shade of red: that's how it was, the beetroot of childhood. Latently aggressive on the palate, unconvincing in taste but always harbouring the potential to cause serious trouble after Sunday pub lunch. "Mum...help! My pee is red!" Many people seem to have never recovered from this shock, surely there is no other way to explain why, in spontaneous surveys of acquaintances, there is always a qualified majority that still don't want to know about beetroot.