On Food and Cooking

(Barry) #1

contain less starch than potatoes and are
notably sweet; they may be 5% sugars, a
mixture of sucrose, glucose, and fructose.
Carrots have found their way into cakes and
sugar preserves in the West, are shredded and
sweetened for rice dishes in Iran, and in India
are cooked down in milk to make a vegetable
kind of fudge (halwa).


Carrot Cultivated carrots are swollen taproots
of the species Daucus carota, which arose in
the Mediterranean region. There are two main
groups of cultivated carrots. The eastern
anthocyanin carrot developed in central Asia,
and has reddish-purple to purple-black outer
layers and a yellow core of conducting
vessels. It’s eaten in its home region and can
also be found in Spain. The Western carotene
carrot appears to be a hybrid among three
different groups of ancestors: yellow carrots
cultivated in Europe and the Mediterranean
since medieval times; white carrots that had

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