Laboo

Laboo is an Iranian beet offered by the Experimental Farm Network from seed stewarded by Sama Mansouri of Reyhan Herb Farm in Petaluma, California. The name belongs as much to the dish as to the plant: in Tehran, laboo is a cold-weather street food where vendors peel and boil the roots, then serve them hot off pikes. What makes it worth a row in a Western garden is a combination almost no market beet offers, since EFN reports roots reaching the size of basketballs while staying free of the tough internal veining Iranian growers call risheh, the fibre that renders most oversized beets inedible. It also feeds two traditional dishes, soupe laboo and the roasted beets served for Shab-e Yalda, the winter solstice celebration. As a landrace rather than a bred cultivar, expect more plant-to-plant variation than a hybrid would give.