Harvard Beets (1933)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Certainly not Yale.
   I ran "Harvard beets" on the American Periodical Series online and got ZERO hits!  APS journals include, for example, the LADIES' HOME JOURNAL and many agricultural publications.  I was surprised!
   Nothing also on JSTOR, American Memory (Library of Congress), OCLC Worldcat, Dissertation abstracts, trademark records...
   The standard story is here:

http://www.foodreference.com/html/fharvardbeets.html

   How ancient can "Harvard beets" be if it's not in any of these databases?
   It's possible that someone who's doing the OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD AND DRINK beet beat will beat my "Harvard beets."  (Beat.)  The beat goes on.
   Supposedly, the name was inspired from the crimson uniform of the Harvard footballers, so that would put us in the early 1900s. Here's the earliest from the full-text daily newspaper in the northeast that records everything fit to print:

   26 December 1933, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 8 ad:
EAT EVERY DAY
at
_CHILDS_
for 25 cents
TODAY'S SPECIALS
Fresh Vegetable Plate (Spinach, Buttered Carrots, Harvard Beets), Parsley Potato...25 cents