Very interesting thread. Cylindra beets grow well for me but they are longer than wide and my wife, who makes a lot of borshch says they are not the right shape for borshch. I know there are as many borshch recipes as there are cooks, many with diced or sliced beets where you couldn't tell the original shape, so I let this go by.
Anyway, one day my DW was making some of her delicious borshch and I was making fruit popsicles and she asked me if there were any recipes for beet popsicles because she loved beets very much. I Googled it and sure enough there was. The recipe called for water reserved from boiling beets. My DW read the popsicle recipe and said was just about to boil some beets for her borshch and she gave me a few cups for the popsicles. When she tasted a finished popsicle she couldn't finish it and handed it to me. She had salted the water with the beets and the popsicles tasted salty. I ended up eating all the salty beet popsicles, which tasted bad, but my mother taught me not to waste food. Chef's learn by eating their mistakes.
So back to beets and acidity. Good borshch is sour and beets are naturally sweet. Newer borshch recipes often call for added vinegar or even lemons, which were not available to peasant cooks in Eastern Europe. Real old school borshch was made sour by letting it ferment for a day or so. This is the way my mother made it and it tastes a lot better than the vinegary kind.
Even better is borshch made with sorrel (zeleniy borshch). Skip the beets. Fill the pot with chopped sorrel, maybe a little spinach. (It boils down.) Some people like to add potato for a little body. I just throw a chunk of brindza in the bowl and revel in the goodness. Just writing this makes me want some.
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