Brief Guide To... Carrots

Scientific name: Daucus Carota subsp. sativus

Brief Guide To : Carrots

Brief Guide To... Carrots

Here's your brief guide to carrots!

Go smooth with smoothies and soups, crunchy with fresh carrots in dips for the summer or go somewhere in-between with a warming winter side dish of crunchy melt-in-the-mouth roasted carrots to go with the Sunday lunch. If you're just after some moreish snacks bursting with carrot goodness, then perhaps indulge in some lightly salted carrot vegetable crisps for a savoury treat as an alternative to regular crisps. Sweeter than potatoes, they even have a cake named after them - carrot cake!

Carrots are such fun to grow too! Children and adults love grabbing hold of the frilly leaves and pulling the long tubers out of from the soil to discover the gems that have been hidden underground. Most are the orange variety but sow a few red, purple, white, yellow types, or even some of the elusive black carrots as a talking point down at the allotment.

Besides being fun and versatile, carrots are wonderfully nutritious; packed with vitamin A, they've long been associated with being able to see in the dark. While it's true that vitamin A helps with low light vision, the notion that carrots will give you exceptional night vision seems to have been promoted through World War II propaganda that RAF pilots carried out such successful overnight missions due to their exceptionally sharp night vision as a result of the amount of carrots they ate!

But carrots were genuinely promoted as a super vegetable because they were easy to grow, helped increase nutrients during war times, reduced Britain's dependence on shipping food into the country and...even provided something sweet for the sugar-rationed tongues of the British consumers!

Not only did carrot cake make a revival, but here's the recipe for Lord Woolton Pie (Minister for Food) based on carrots and other vegetables that were promoted during the Second World War, published in the BROMLEY TIMES...SDFASJFSDJFLSJF

LORD WOOLTON PIE

THE OFFICIAL RECIPE In hotels and restaurants, no less than in communal canteens, many people have tasted

Lord Woolton pie and pronounced it good. Like many another economical dish, it can be

described as wholesome fare.

It also meets che dietician's requirements in certain vita- mins. The ingredients can be varied according to the vegetables in season. Here is the official

recipe:- Take 1lb. each diced of potatoes, cauliflower, swedes. and carrots. three or four spring onions -if possible, one içaspoonful of vercuable extract. and one table

sooanful of ontmeal.

Cook all together for 10 minutes

with just cough water to cover.

Stir occasionally to.

prevent the misture from sticking.

Allow to cool; put into a piedish, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and cover

with a crust of potato or wheatmeal pastry

Bake in

moderate oven until the pastry is nicely browned and serve 303 wily brown gravy.

He believed a healthy nation would create a healthy economy, and that people who ate potatoes were in fact:

"the strongest men and the most beautiful women"