Few vegetables have the panache of carrots, freshly washed, greenly frilled, patiently waiting at the farmers’ markets to catch the eye of a shopper like me. Whether traditional long, orange Nelsons or renegades like Purple Haze, Yellowstone and Atomic Red, I am a fool for carrots so gloriously fresh they snap and so sweet they go down like candy. Spring and fall, you’ll find locally grown carrots at most markets.
Jeremy Saurage of Deep Mud Farms will grow Nelson, Bolero, Yellowstone and Baltimore varieties this year. Carrots fall into several classes, the most common being Nantes, Imperator and Chantenay. “Yellowstone is an Imperator, long and thin, with a yellow flesh,” Saurage explained. “Bolero and Nelson are Nantes – a storage carrot, deep orange, more cylindrical, with a blunt end. Chantenays are shorter and wider – Baltimore is new for me.”
Dragon, Purple Haze, Atomic Red, Yaya – Earthdance Farm manager Vicki Lander’s recitation of the varieties she will bring to market made me more than a little curious. I’m familiar only with Purple Haze, whose skin is so violently purple, its bright orange core glows pretty psychedelic.
Ditto for Atomic Red – deep red skin, orange core. I’ve read this carrot cooks up to a brilliant red with a taste a bit on the tangy side. Dragon, an heirloom variety, is one purple carrot I’m looking forward to sampling. Both Atomic Red and Dragon rely on high levels of lycopene for color, making these carrots especially beautiful. Yaya grows short and extraordinarily sweet, so plan to add this variety to your market bag, too.
At Three Rivers Community Farm near Elsah, Ill., owner Amy Cloud harvested carrots throughout last summer. “Cool weather and lots of rain allowed us to grow carrots throughout July and August,” she said, “but carrots are a cool-season crop, spring and fall. With carrots, we’ve found them sweetest in the fall, October and November, when the temperatures cool.”
She grows two standard varieties, Nelson and Mokum, both reassuringly orange, with Mokum the longer, slimmer carrot. “We are a CSA farm, and our members expect the more traditional varieties in their shares,” she explained. “We sell the same produce at markets.”
Cloud always washes but never peels her carrots. “People who peel them waste a lot of the carrot,” she said. Her favorite preparations are simple ones – sautéed in a bit of olive oil, stir-fried or puréed into simple soups. “We are too busy during the growing season to cook,” she explained.
I was able to cook and enjoy rainbow carrots from Berger Bluff Farm last summer, another delicious and beautiful choice. White, yellow, red and purple in one bunch – their taste is sweet, the bite brittle when eaten raw. Try them steamed, then mashed with a bit of butter and a little honey, or simply roasted with olive oil and sea salt – sublime. Paired with curries or ginger, they’re sassy and spicy. Grate them into slaws with fresh cabbage, green and red peppers, celery seeds, and a cooked sweet-and-sour dressing.
Carrot bread, muffins and even an experimental bar cookie came out great, although the bar cookie was so moist it tended to fall apart. But a sweet salad of grated carrots, golden raisins, chopped raw cashews, diced apricots and finely diced celery tossed with a mayonnaise-sour cream-apple juice dressing was a standout.
Look for carrots from all three farms at the Maplewood Farmers’ Market on Wednesdays; Earthdance Farm will also sell on Saturdays at the Ferguson Market, and Three Rivers will be at the downtown Thursday market and at the Saturday Tower Grove Farmers’ Market.
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This article appears in Apr 1-30, 2010.