Who knew that a vegetable discovered by Pliny the Elder in the First Century AD would become a 21st-century phenomenon?

Carrot cotton candy, beet charcuterie, a fire-breathing chef, a big top tent, carnival games, two cheetahs, a bouncy house and a ringmaster named DocSconz. It might sound like a circus, but these are just a few of the memorable moments from Roots Cultivate 2018.

Think of a dinner plate as a teeter-totter. If both riders sit at the same end of the board, all of the weight is concentrated there so it neither teeters nor totters.

That leafy stuff sitting in your compost bin may be discarded lettuce, but it might as well be money. Because, if you’re throwing away your greens, then you’re throwing away your hard-earned green.

“The Culinary Vegetable Institute,” says Maeve Webster, president of Menu Matters, “truly is innovative, playing an important role in the development of food service. Historically, they’ve focused more on fine dining and independent restauranteurs, so I’m excited to see how, at Roots, the focus is broadening to include the role that food manufacturers and national chain restaurants can play in cultivating healthier eating.”

Beets are a polarizing vegetable. There is no gray area. People either love them, or they hate them.