If you know me personally, you may know my absolute favorite vegetable is the carrot. Not just any carrot though, but a Winter carrot. If you are not in the know, you may think my discrimination a bit snooty. I promise you though, once you try a Winter carrot pulled after a few frosts your life will be changed.
The Carrot
The part we love about the carrot plant is not the actual plant itself, i.e. the greens, but rather the root the plant creates in order to feed itself in its quest to produce seeds and reproduce. Carrots are biennials which means they grow during their first year in the ground, then produce flowers and seeds in their second year. Their hefty root therefore acts as an anchor to hold them firmly in the ground for so long, a means of collecting nutrients and water to then send up towards the greens, as well as a food storage system.
I won’t get into the nitty gritty of carrot anatomy, (you can go here if you want to learn more though), but rather touch on a few aspects I find fascinating:
Root cap/root tip– According to Britannica, the root cap, “serves to protect the growing tip as it makes its way through the soil,” and the World Carrot Museum adds that it also, “excretes a mucus like substance called mucigel,” which helps, “the root to move through the soil easily,” which sounds yummy, right?
Epidermis- We have an epidermis, our skin, but what makes the carrot root epidermis so interesting to me is that it absorbs, “water and dissolved nutrients,” through osmosis (Britannica). This is not unique to just carrot roots, this is all plant roots, but I still think that it’s pretty interesting.
Cortex-This component is most relevant to our sugary interests. The cortex, located right under the epidermis, moves the water and minerals from the epidermis over to the vascular cylinder which then transports the goods across the rest of the plant (Britannica). The important part to us though, is that the majority of the starches are stored in the cortex (World Carrot Museum), which is what gets converted into sugar and makes the root oh so sweet for us.
Nutritionally speaking carrots are, “a good source of carotenoids, vitamins, and dietary fiber,” while, “also rich in minerals and antioxidants,” making them a wonderful addition to your diet. The presence of carotenoids is especially good since they help, “in preventing cancer, cerebrovascular disease (CVD), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and cataracts” (Que, et. al, 2019) so forget about an apple a day to keep the doctor away, make that a carrot a day! Dark colored carrots (think Black Nebula or Cosmic Purple) also contain high levels of anthocyanins. Nutritionally, anthocyanins help in, “prevention of cardiovascular diseases, anticarcinogenic activity, control of diabetes, and improvement of vision” (Que, et. al, 2019) so who can blame Buggs for his constant carrot snacking?
Carotenoids and anthocyanins are clearly good for us, but why do plants produce them? What do the plants get from them? Well, this research suggests anthocyanin is produced to help protect the plant from experiencing damage from intense light. As for carotenoids, this research explains they are, “essential in different plant processes and are potential antioxidants during plant stress,” as well as assisting with different aspects of photosynthesis among a few other things. Pretty interesting, right?
Winter Carrots
According to the World Carrot Museum, carrots convert the sugar they produce into starch since it is an easier form of storage. Then, “when the plant requires the energy in the form of sugar it uses an enzyme to do the conversion,” which is important in how they survive cold temperatures. When there is a freeze, the plant needs to make sure its cells do not freeze as that could lead to the plant’s death. How does it survive then? By converting those starches into sugars so the ratio of sugar to water is high enough to prevent the cells from freezing. Basically, the carrot makes its own anti-freeze.
Prolonged exposure to cold temperatures also works to break down the starches found in the carrot root, leading to an increased sugar content. This study suggests that Winter carrots stored at cold temperatures post-harvest continue to convert starch into sugar, making them even more sweet and delicious.
Now, what does this mean when you are at the farmer’s market?
If it’s cold outside, then the carrots are probably sweet. After your area experiences its first frost, the beginning of November here in the North Carolina Piedmont, the carrots you see at market will most likely be sweeter than the ones before the first frost.
If the carrots still have their greens on, then they were likely pulled within the past few days. You know this because if the greens are left on too long, the root will begin to shrivel as the food stored there gets pumped into the greens. (Which is why if you buy carrots still wearing their greens, cut them off before putting them into the crisper!) There are lots of recipes for what to do with the greens if you don’t want to compost them.
If the carrot is not wearing its greens, then it’s probably been in storage. Another storage indicator is if you take a look at the skin to see if it looks and feels silky versus scaly. If it looks kind of scaly, then most likely it’s been stored. Or you can just ask the person at the booth! Just from personal observation, the larger the farm the more likely the carrots are storage carrots later in the season as the larger farms have the space and infrastructure to pull and then store their carrots. Since our Winters are so mild here, smaller operations tend to harvest as needed throughout the season until they run out or need to flip the bed for Spring planting. This of course is not a steadfast rule of thumb, so ask the person at the booth for clarification if you are specifically looking for the ultra-sweet storage carrot or the crisp and juicy fresh pulled Winter carrot.
Cooking and Preserving
The high sugar content in Winter carrots makes them excellent for raw eating, fermentation, caramelization, and desserts, versus carrots from other seasons. Warm weather carrots are well suited to soups and stews where their slight bitterness is masked by the rest of the dish, in my humble opinion. Winter carrots are so sweet and delicious that whenever I cook or bake with them I make sure they are the shining star of the dish because how can you not?
I have a few favorite Winter carrot recipes (when I manage to not just eat them all. There’s a reason why my husband calls me Buggs Bunny), but my absolute favorite one is this Sourdough Winter Carrot Cake.
So, now that I have gotten you sufficiently excited about eating all of the Winter carrots, go run to your local market and snag some soon! Our final frost date has already passed which means the last of the Winter carrots are at the market. Stock up and put them in your vegetable crisper (drawer) in your fridge. If you have a root cellar then you can store them in damp sawdust and pull them out as needed. You can also freeze, pickle, ferment, can, and dehydrate carrots, or try your hand at making carrot cake jam.
What’s your favorite way to enjoy these Winter beauties? Have you had a Winter carrot before?
References
Britannica https://www.britannica.com/science/root-plant#ref1280485
Gebhard Bufler, Accumulation and degradation of starch in carrot roots, Scientia Horticulturae, Volume 150, 2013, Pages 251-258, ISSN 0304-4238, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2012.11.022.
Hans J. Rosenfeld, Ragnar T. Samuelsen & Per Lea (1998) The effect of temperature on sensory quality, chemical composition and growth of carrots (Daucus carota L.) I. Constant diurnal temperature, The Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology, 73:2, 275-288, DOI: 10.1080/14620316.1998.11510975
Hughes, N.M., Neufeld, H.S. and Burkey, K.O. (2005), Functional role of anthocyanins in high‐light winter leaves of the evergreen herb Galax urceolata. New Phytologist, 168: 575-587. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2005.01546.x
Que, F., Hou, X. L., Wang, G. L., Xu, Z. S., Tan, G. F., Li, T., Wang, Y. H., Khadr, A., & Xiong, A. S. (2019). Advances in research on the carrot, an important root vegetable in the Apiaceae family. Horticulture research, 6, 69. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41438-019-0150-6
The World Carrot Museum http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/carrotroot.html#:~:text=Together%2C%20the%20hypocotyl%20and%20the,suberin%20and%20other%20waxy%20substances.
Uarrota V.G., Stefen D.L.V., Leolato L.S., Gindri D.M., Nerling D. (2018) Revisiting Carotenoids and Their Role in Plant Stress Responses: From Biosynthesis to Plant Signaling Mechanisms During Stress. In: Gupta D., Palma J., Corpas F. (eds) Antioxidants and Antioxidant Enzymes in Higher Plants. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75088-0_10
Creaks and Greens 