In a Roman kitchen, a beetroot might be boiled for supper, its leaves already cut for the table. Yet this plain root began far from Europe’s dining rooms, in the ancient Middle East, where beet was first grown mainly for its greens, before the root itself came into favour.

By the Roman era, beet had travelled into the Mediterranean world, and the old texts make it plain enough. Greek and Roman writers knew it, and by the first century BC both Roman and Jewish records place beetroots in use. The plant was no curiosity by then; it was part of the ordinary food landscape.

Long before that, written records from Babylonia in the eighth century BC had already named it, while archaeology adds quieter proof. Remains have been found in the Third-Dynasty Saqqara pyramid at Memphis, and at a Neolithic site in the Netherlands. Charred beet from Roman Germany matters because it shows domestication in hard evidence, not just in words.

In the Middle Ages, beetroot stepped from the pot into the apothecary’s bowl. It was used for complaints of digestion and the blood, and Bartolomeo Platina, a Renaissance writer on food, even recommended beetroot with garlic to cancel out garlic breath. A root vegetable had become both supper and remedy.

Then, in the middle of the seventeenth century, beet juice found a stranger use: wine colouring. That deep red pigment, betanin, gives beet its colour and does not break down in the body. If you eat enough, it can turn urine or stools reddish, a harmless effect called beeturia, though it can look alarming at first glance.

After the First World War, beet turned up in a far harsher setting. Food shortages across Europe brought cases of mangelwurzel disease, as relief workers called it, caused by eating almost nothing but beet. The same plant that had once dressed a table could, in famine, stand in for a meal and expose how narrow survival had become.

During the Second World War, beet was planted in many victory gardens. It suited the times: easy to grow, useful as both root and greens, and even a rough indicator of soil pH, with healthy growth suggesting the ground was not too acidic. In wartime, a humble crop could tell you as much about the earth as about the dinner plate.

And that is beet’s peculiar journey: a plant with edible taproot and leaves, sold as table beet, garden beet, or dinner beet, then pickled, roasted, boiled, or shredded raw. Its leaves became beet greens, its roots fed kitchens from Eastern Europe to Australia and New Zealand, and its red flesh still stains the bowl before it reaches the plate.