Ukrainian Vs President Obama: Does his first name Barack have any link to Beetroot? September 27, 2019 19:44

Three years ago, on a Canada day, one senior gentle man, about in his 70s, came to our booth in St. Norbert. He claimed he is a Ukrainian. After he saw all of our beet-based products, he said he would be going to tell a story about President Obama that is prevailing among Ukrainian community. We were curious to know the story.

He told, when President Obama was born, the hairy baby looked like a beetroot to his mom and/or her relatives. So, she named the baby ‘Barack’ in English. In Ukrainian language, Beetroot is called as ‘Buryak’ ‘буряк’. Both ‘Barack’ and “Buryak’ have almost similar pronunciation. Listen both in the following links

https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the/ukrainian-word-for-ff81315b7f51274a6350d9a96f03407adbdb684f.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX5BWBlyFZE

So, this is how President Obama was indirectly named of the superfood ‘Beetroot’. Based on our search, this story is a story and may not be relevant to President Obama. Following blog says President Obama does not like Beets. https://www.finecooking.com/article/hey-obama-how-dya-like-them-beets. Is it due to the First Lady Michelle Obama who does not like beets https://www.vogue.com/article/vegetable-michelle-obama-hates . Actually Michelle Obama was here few days ago in Winnipeg to deliver her speech to the Manitoba business community. Just missed, we could have told about this story and checked why she does not like beets. Read this blog too http://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/history-beets/ which has interesting info about beets and a comment on Obama's organic Garden in the white house. 

We would like to check with President Obama if above story has any relevancy to President Obama’s first name. You never know, our conclusion may be wrong and that Ukrainian gentleman may be right. Three years ago, President Obama was in the office. So, we were overly scared to check this with him. But over these 3 years period, we have developed the guts to ask this Nobel Laureate, the America’s Gandhi, the living ‘Mahatma’ to answer above question. 

Beet Soup was in the menu of Gandhiji’s Sabarmati Ashram. We will provide some info about it in our next blog on October 2nd in a week, which is the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.