About Those Carrots
Carrots. They are one of the heavy hitters when it comes to everything from classic culinary endeavors to quick snacks. A common denominator across a variety of bases, be it the Louisiana holy trinity of carrots, onions and bell peppers or a French mirepoix of carrots, onions, and celery. Carrots versatility lands them in soups and stews, roasted, juiced, steamed, boiled, baked, and grilled.
A root vegetable in the family Apiaceae, along with parsnips, fennel, cilantro, celery, parsley, dill, cumin, lovage and other aromatic flowering plants with tap roots, the plants are identified by their hollow stems and umbels which are the flat-topped cluster of flowers. Native to Central Asia and Europe but first cultivated in Persia, carrots come in a variety of colors including orange, purple, red, yellow, black, and white. Originally grown for their leaves and seeds, the root of the carrot was not mentioned as a food source until the first century A.D. by the Romans. By the 8th century A.D., cultivated carrots had spread throughout Asia and Europe. European settlers brought carrots to America. Today over 40 million tons of carrots are harvested annually throughout the world.
Why are carrots and their cousins so popular? Let’s see, easy to grow, tasty, versatile, stores well, and extremely nutritious. One large carrot supplies the daily recommendation for Vitamin A through the metabolization of beta carotene—the compound that gives vegetables their brilliant colors.
Right now at the market, colorful bags of carrots call my name as I think about all the ways I can use them. On particularly cold days I like to crank the oven to 500 degrees and roast a whole pan of carrots sliced lengthwise and drizzled with olive oil. They’re great warm and cold. Puree a few in a cup or two of hot broth and you’ve got a quick and easy soup. Go ahead, drop a dollop of crème fraiche on top.
Despite having weekly access to carrots, right before the seasonal vegetable vendors leave for the year I begin hoarding the big orange field carrots for winter storage. They’ll last for months in the refrigerator, always at the ready for a big pot of comfort food like red beans and rice or a classic like Espagnole.
Did you know that the tops of carrots can also be eaten? Although not routinely used as a food source, the lacey leaves can be added to salads or cooked, similar to using parsley, fennel, or cilantro as a flavoring.
What about baby carrots? Like baby back ribs and Cornish game hens, those uniformly shaped nubs are a figment of the industrial food complex trying to salvage what was once waste. Prior to the creation of a machine that would turn broken and misshapen carrots into bite sized snacks, farmers could lose as much as 70% of their crop due to the lack of uniformity. Today, baby carrots are the most popular item sold in American grocery store produce isles. But if you ask your farmer at the market for baby carrots, you’re going to be given a banded bunch of true young carrots that will look just like a large carrot only smaller and often come from thinning the rows so the vegetable can grow bigger without crowding.
A big fan of carrots are moms, especially those with babies. Pureed carrots might be your first thought, but over the years I’ve watched many teething babies get handed a cold carrot to gnaw on—no plastic, no chemicals, no expensive remedy, just organic goodness that can be composted after it has fallen on the floor or been licked by the dog one too many times.
And speaking of dogs, carrots make great snacks for them, too!
Of course winter wouldn’t be winter without at least one snowman. While Frosty may have had a button nose, most snowmen sport a carrot to be more environmentally PC. Plus, the little critters get a treat when the temperatures turn winter’s effigy into a puddle.
One of the most ingenuous uses of carrots I’ve ever seen, though, was not in the kitchen, but on a long, empty highway in the Central Valley of California where I was working in a very remote canyon. Finding the turnoff for the dirt road back through the nondescript sage scrub was a big problem for everyone until one morning when the crew was having breakfast at a small diner several miles away. A tractor trailer full of bright orange carrots pulled into the parking lot, the trucker stopping for breakfast. My boss walked over and offered to buy the man’s meal if he’d do a favor. We all left together, the truck following us to the turn-off where he stopped his truck and shoveled out what must have been a hundred pounds of carrots on to the road. He backed his rig up crushing the vegetables on to the pavement creating a huge orange splotch. Those carrots were still there almost a year later. The power of carrots.