Why Dutch carrots?
"The carrot is the banana of the vegetable world; that is to say, iconic." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Well the answer to the question about Dutch carrots is pretty obvious really, although there are a couple of interesting things about it.
Yes of course they are named after the Dutch who made the carrot orange back in the 17th century. Before that they were all sorts of other colours but not orange.
And people didn't eat them either - they were mostly decorative. Well they are beautiful are they not?
So how did they get to be orange? Well it's all to do with the original name for the orange from Afghanistan, the town of Orange in France and William of Orange. The original name sounds a bit like orange - which is why the orange is called an orange today. There was a Roman town in France, also with a name a bit like orange, which eventually morphed into Orange. It's a lovely town with a very impressive Roman theatre.
William, who was originally from Nassau - I did not know that - became Prince of Orange. Quite how he was also the ruler of Holland I do not know but anyway he was. To impress him, the gardeners of Holland developed a small sweet carrot, orange in colour which they named after him.
"Carrots are orange because oranges are orange ... the color was named after the fruit, and not the other way around." Wesley Fenlon - Adam Savage's Tested
Why am I talking about this? Well it's sort of a lucky dip. I have chosen a lucky dip book - The Australian Women's Weekly Moroccan - and I will come to that. The carrots do not come from the recipe I chose either - later - but I flicked through the book because I haven't looked at it in a while and I noticed that there were at least four recipes for Dutch carrots.
But before I get on to the Moroccans and Dutch carrots I should make another aside. Here in Australia we call these small carrots sold in bunches - now in many of their original colours - Dutch carrots for the aforesaid reasons. Although almost everyone else seems to call them baby carrots. Why the Australians should be the only ones to call them Dutch carrots I have no idea. But in America baby carrots are another thing again.
These are actually large carrots that have been peeled and cut to a specific size and then packaged for sale as 'baby carrots'. Not babies at all. They are seen as a healthy snacking food, like Perfection's baby cucumbers and the abundance of cherry tomatoes that we have today.
"At a time when most ugly vegetables go to waste in the United States, ugly carrots are carved and sold at a premium." Roberto A. Ferdman - Washington Post
Which I suppose is a good thing, but my bet is that most people who buy these think they are indeed buying baby - i.e. small carrots. Larger carrots can be woody I suppose, although mostly they aren't. But as the quote says it does allow misshapen carrots to have a life. We don't like misshapen vegetables on our supermarket shelves do we?
But back to what we call Dutch carrots, which I have to admit, I rarely buy. They are rather more expensive than ordinary carrots and not that much more tasty. Even Yotam Ottolenghi says that if you can't get what the English call baby carrots then buy larger ones and split them lengthwise. Dutch carrots are trendy though because they usually are cooked with a little bit of the top on them which make them look very trendy and posh. And here are some beautiful looking examples to show you what I mean: Roasted carrot and orange salad with baba ganoush from Donna Hay, queen of style, Carrot and asparagus with pistachio butter - Coles - showed you this one the other day, Carrot, raisin and herb salad - Women's Weekly Moroccan, Roasted baby carrots with harissa and pomegranate - Yotam Ottolenghi, Honey-roasted carrots with dates, dandelions and Moroccan dressing - Greg Malouf, Crispy Moroccan carrots - Jamie Oliver, Minted carrots with goat's cheese - Women's Weekly.
There is no recipe online for this last one - the Minted carrots with goat's cheese, but it is very typical of lots of recipes out there. This version is very simple - you grill the carrots, dry fry some cumin then mix it all together with some mint and goat's cheese.
But note how many of these recipes seem to be Moroccan in origin. I'm not sure why the Moroccans are so into carrots. If indeed they are. I did try to find out but could find nothing. Suffice to say that the vast majority of recipes that you will find online today for Dutch carrots have a Moroccan twist - they will be roasted or grilled and mixed with various Moroccan spices and things like pomegranates, dates and raisins. And the Dutch were never that big in Morocco. But carrots do seem to be a thing. Robert Carrier has several recipes for glazed carrots and salads in his 1987 book on the food of Morocco. Not baby or Dutch carrots though. Just carrots. Interesting isn't it?
