It is truly amazing how the bare technique of softening and caramelizing vegetables under a high, dry heat brings out an extra rich and deep, delicious flavor. What’s even more amazing is how this cooking method has not been used until more recent times. In fact, if I took a poll right now most would state that many vegetables served at their tables—throughout their entire lives—have been either boiled, steamed, or if very lucky, sautéed!

An Oven To The Rescue

The act of roasting of vegetables was simply not done, and it appears that one of the main reasons this easy and awesome way of cooking veggies did, finally, come to the forefront was due in large part to a restaurant that had only an oven to cook everything in!

According to internet research, the concept of roasting vegetables appears to be rooted in a famous Italian restaurant: Johanne Killeen and George Germon’s Al Forno, which opened in Providence, Rhode Island in 1980. With a kitchen that boasted only one cooking appliance—an oven—they had no choice but to use it to cook everything, including the veggies.

Cucina Simpatica

Offering extensive advice on roasting vegetables in what would become an influential cookbook, Cucina Simpatica (1991), Killeen and Germon’s method helped spur a lengthy New York Times article (January 1993) on roasting veggies, further pushing this basic technique into its own spotlight.

Recommending that home cooks should not “shy away from the high temperatures” The Times article also alluded that cooking in this fashion was, “More bistro, less Betty Crocker,” thus daring home cooks to step outside of their tidy little recipe boxes!

Coming on the heels of cable television cooking shows, which further jettisoned roasting veggies into vogue, the idea of not boiling the flavor and nutrition out of our food has steadily increased ever since!

Bring Out The Flavor With Roasting

Roasting is truly a simple technique that renders a spectacular, almost fussed-over flavor that makes it most unique. In fact, once tasted it is frankly impossible to return to a boiled version, which renders veggies to possess a flavor that is both bland and bleak.

Thank God, we don’t have to!

Here now is a super-easy way to rev up the flavor of your veggies – simply by getting roaste—Royally Roasted Beets.