I know borscht, and have made the beetroot version, as well as the cabbage and sorrel variants. Since the tuberous kind of parsley is rarely found here in Australia I substitute the root of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum), of which I always have a generous crop, or celeriac, though the flavour is not quite the same. I prefer the vegetarian versions, though I do make a nice meaty one starting with boiling beef bones to make the broth and then adding all the little scraps of meat off the bones, or some finely shredded stewing steak. Since the beef butcher at our Farmers Market is always up for swapping meat or stock bones for bunches of the flowers I grow, and the pork butcher will generally swap her products for young fruit trees since she is starting an orchard, I normally have access to decent meat without great expense.
