Can you eat Sugar Beet?

[CuppaTeaJanice]

I remember a local farmer coming to our primary school with some samples of sugar beet, which I remember as tasting quite nice (28 years ago though so memory might be distorted!!).

I haven't heard it mentioned in recipe books, or seen it in shops since, so I'm wondering if it's a forgotten vegetable, or does nobody eat it because it tastes disgusting?!!!

Has anybody ever cooked or eaten sugar beet?

I've never even seen a sugar beet in the flesh as it were. I wonder if it would taste like sweet potato?

I think it's just something which tastes bad... they extract the sugar and use the rest as animal feed...

Ditto what AMIS said. It grows round here and is processed here too. The factory stinks.

I saw a documentary on our local tv about this. There's a lot of sugar beet grown around here, apparently during WW2 people ate it but only when desperate. The presenter tasted some sugar beet soup and didn't look impressed!