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Food and Farming Page

Carrot

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Several species of carrots are cultivated,--the red, the yellow, and the which. Those known as the Crecy carrots are considered the best, and are very sweet. The carrot has been classed by hygienists among flatulent vegetables, and as difficult of digestion. When the root becomes old, it is almost as hard as wood; but the young carrot, which has not reached its full growth, is tender, relishing, nutritious, and digests well when properly cooked.

There is a wild carrot which grows in England; but it is white and small, and not much esteemed. The garden carrot in general use, was introduced in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was, at first, so highly esteemed, that the ladies wore leaves of it in their head-dresses. It is of great value in the culinary art, especially for soups and stews. It can be used also for beer instead of malt, and, in distillation, it yields a large quantity of spirit. The carrot is proportionably valuable as it has more of the red than the yellow part. There is a large red variety much used by the farmers for colouring butter. As a garden vegetable, it is what is called the orange-carrot that is usually cultivated. As a fattening food for cattle, it is excellent; but for man it is indigestible, on account of its fibrous matter. Of 1,000 parts, 95 consist of sugar, and 3 of starch.--The accompanying cut represents a pretty winter ornament, obtained by placing a cut from the top of the carrot-root in a shallow vessel of water, when the young leaves spring forth with a charming freshness and fullness.

Carrots are managed as it respects plowing and rich ground, similarly to Parsnips. The yellow are better than the orange or red; middling siz'd, that is, a foot long and two inches thick at the top end, are better than overgrown ones; they are cultivated best with onions, sowed very thin, and mixed with other seeds, while young, or six weeks after sown, especially if with onions on true onion ground. They are good with veal cookery, rich in soups, excellent with hash, in May and June.

Carrots, says Liebig, contain the same kind of sugar as the juice of the sugar-cane.

Origin of the Carrot: In its wild state, this vegetable is found plentifully in Britain, both in cultivated lands and by waysides, and is known by the name of birds-nest, from its umbels of fruit becoming incurved from a hollow cup, like a birds-nest. In this state its root is whitish, slender, and hard, with an acrid, disagreeable taste, and a strong aromatic smell, and was formerly used as an aperient. When cultivated, it is reddish, thick, fleshy, with a pleasant odour, and a peculiar, sweet, mucilaginous taste. The carrot is said by naturalists not to contain much nourishing matter, and, generally speaking, is somewhat difficult of digestion.

Constituents of the Carrot: These are crystallizable and uncrystallizable sugar, a little starch, extractive, gluten, albumen, volatile oil, vegetable jelly, or pectin, saline matter, malic acid, and a peculiar crystallizable ruby-red neuter principle, without odour or taste, called carotin. This vegetable jelly, or pectin, so named from its singular property of gelatinizing, is considered by some as another form of gum or mucilage, combined with vegetable acid. It exists more or less in all vegetables, and is especially abundant in those roots and fruits from which jellies are prepared.

Nutritive Properties of the Carrot: Sir H. Davy ascertained the nutritive matter of the carrot to amount to ninety-eight parts in one thousand; of which ninety-five are sugar and three are starch. It is used in winter and spring in the dairy to give colour and flavour to butter; and it is excellent in stews, haricots, soups, and, when boiled whole, with salt beef. In the distillery, owing to the great proportion of sugar in its composition, it yields more spirit than the potato. The usual quantity is twelve gallons per ton.

The Seed of the Carrot: In order to save the seed of carrots, the plan is, to select annually the most perfect and best-shaped roots in the taking-up season, and either preserve them in sand in a cellar till spring, or plant them immediately in an open airy part of the garden, protecting them with litter during severe frost, or earthing them over, and uncovering them in March following. The seed is in no danger from being injured by any other plant. In August it is fit to gather, and is best preserved on the stalks till wanted.