Silverbeet

wasn’t my most hate-to-eat food while growing up, but it was high on the list. Not quite as atrocious as liver or tripe, but close.

It looks great in the garden. The vitamin A-rich, shiny, dark-green, ribbed leaves, saturated in sun and chorophyll, shouted health and goodness. But somewhere between the garden and the dinner table, they morphed into an insipid, textureless, grey-green sog.

Their poor reputation can be blamed on a generation of over-cooking. The result is a large number of silverbeethaters. My husband, usually an open, experimental, creative cook, won’t touch it. Those who do have it in their garden only use it when they get desperate. Most often, silverbeet goes to seed and gets fed to the chooks or ends up in the compost heap.

The tide of silverbeet hate needs to turn. This underrated green is one of the most useful, easy-to-grow, nutritious garden greens, containing high levels of manganese, magnesium, potassium, iron, copper, vitamins K, A, and C.

Mediterranean cooks love the deep, earthy flavour and bitter sweetness. You can add shredded leaves to pies, tarts, creamed soups, or blanch whole leaves and use them to wrap fragrant rice and fillings. It’s great on cool autumn evenings in a tasty chickpea, chorizo and silverbeet stew, tomato and potato gratin, a vegetarian lasagne, or in a pie.