DO BEETS REALLY TASTE LIKE DIRT?

Today my CAST-teammates discussed BEETS. All ways to cook them (boil or roast), ways to peel them (before or after they're cooked) , ways to use them (in Australia, sliced on a hamburger), fresh versus canned. Make borscht, or salad, or a side dish. Eat the green beet tops or not (if they're young and tender).

On and on went the BEET discussion. It was generally agreed that beets do taste like dirt. I guess that means people like the taste of dirt. How does one acquire a taste for dirt? My thought is they ate lots and lots of mud pies out in the back yard when they were children.

I remember one of my sisters making meatballs from mud and serving them up for the playmates to dine on.

When my granddaughter was in kindergarten, she came home from school one day - all thrilled because she had made mud pies that day in school and she brought a huge piece of paper, with the recipe on it, home with her. She announced proudly when she showed it to me - "here's my "masterpiece".

Grammie's reaction: what a charming malapropism !  Sometimes the wrong word says it so much better than the right one.

She got "masterpiece" and "recipe" all discombobulated. . They do sound very much alike. Say them out loud and you'll see.

I'm wondering if she likes beets, being they taste so much like her mud pies. I'll have to ask her.