Let's Talk Food: Carrots get their own month and they deserve it

This is a great day (Wednesday, feb. 3, 2010) for lovers of carrots and carrot cake. Everyone gets 15 minutes of fame, and for an entire day the carrot and carrot cake are celebrated throughout the world. It’s National Carrot Day.

Move over, all you high and mighty museums dedicated to the masters of world-famous art and culture. There is a Carrot Museum in North Yorkshire, England, started by carrot maven John Stolarcyzk. After visiting a variety of museums, castles and churches, he felt it remiss that there was not a museum dedicated to the carrot. After all, the carrot is one of our most healthful foods and enjoys a romantic history in the culinary world.

The carrot is a member of the parsley family and first appeared in Afghanistan more than 3,000 years ago. Back in those ancient days they were red, purple, black, yellow and white. Purple carrots still grow in Egypt but are considered a carrot-come-lately since it has been cultivated for only a few hundred years.

Traders and adventurers visiting Afghanistan took the carrot to other places including the Mediterranean countries and eastward to China, India and Japan. In ancient Greece the carrot was called “philtron” and was commonly used as an aphrodisiac. It was considered beneficial to the virility of the male species while those wily Greeks fed it to women since it was said to loosen their morals and their inhibitions.

Food historians maintain that it was the carrot’s phallic shape that gained it a reputation as contributing to the lascivious nature of both men and women. The Romans were eager to accept this myth, and it was a favored food among the ruling classes. Caligula reportedly force-fed the entire Roman senate carrots, believing that they would be induced to rut about like wild beasts.

During the middle ages, doctors prescribed carrots to cure everything from sexual dysfunction to seasickness and snakebite. Only Asians served carrots as food, while the Europeans used them as cure-alls. The French were considered to have the most sophisticated palates yet they used only the tops of the carrots in their hair, hats, dresses and coats. There are portraits of Marie Antoinette with carrot tops pinned to her hair as decoration.

It was not until the 16th century that the Europeans began including carrots in their diets. Many of the early English settlers brought carrot roots to the Americas. The French began cultivating and improving the strain about 1830.

Few of us really appreciate the carrot and pay it homage. However, the carrot is feted at festivals throughout the world. There are eight carrot festivals celebrated in France, Switzerland, New Zealand and Turkey. The Boston Vegetarian Society, which holds it annual Food Fest every October, has a carrot as its principal logo and they offer a special t-shirt with, yes, a carrot on it.

It seems only fitting that the delicious, tasty, healthful and nutritious carrot would end up in one of the most delectable cakes to come out of an oven. No one seems to know exactly where the carrot cake came from. In “The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century,” author Jean Anderson writes that George Washington was served a carrot tea cake at Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan on Nov. 25, 1783. She also reports that the first recipe published in the United Stares was in “The 20th Century Bride’s Cookbook” in 1929 by a Wichita, Kan., woman’s club. In 1930, the Chicago Daily News published a cookbook in which there was a recipe for carrot cake. However, the cake really didn’t become popular until the 1950s and ’60s.

The Carrot Museum Web site credits Viola Schlicting of Texas with making the first carrot cake, based on her German carrot bread recipe. It was during the 1960s that the cake became a popular treat at country fairs, and the rest is history.

I have tried many recipes for carrot cake and consider this one the very best.

Carrot cake supreme

Ingredients, cake

4 eggs at room temperature

1½ cups sugar

1½ cups vegetable oil

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3 cup grated carrots

½ cup raisins

½ cup chopped pecans

Ingredients, frosting

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

12 tablespoons cup butter or margarine, softened (1½ sticks)

2 cups confectioners sugar

1½ cups well drained, crushed pineapple

1½ teaspoons vanilla

Preparation, cake

* In a large bowl beat eggs until frothy. Add sugar gradually. Beat until light and lemon colored. Slowly add oil, beating until combined.

* Sift together flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Fold dry ingredients by thirds into egg mixture. Add carrot, raisins and pecans. Combine well.

* Pour batter in equal quantities into 3 buttered and floured 8-inch round pans. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until tester comes out clean.

* When cake has cooled completely, cut each layer in half horizontally.

Preparation, frosting

To make frosting, beat cream cheese, butter and confectioners’ sugar until creamy. Blend in pineapple and vanilla. Spread each layer with frosting, stacking layers evenly. Frost top and sides. Chill at least an hour before slicing. This cake may also be baked in a well-greased tube pan in a preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour. Check after 50 minutes. Serves 12.

ASK DORIS

Question: While traveling south we stopped at a little country café in Georgia. We had the best fried chicken accompanied by fried biscuits. I tried to wheedle the recipe from the owner but was told there was no recipe. The cook had it all in her head. Please try to find this recipe. — Bruce Longstreet / Estero

Answer: This is just about the tastiest and the most caloric recipe I’ve encountered and I can’t wait to try it.

Fried chicken with chicken-fried biscuits

Ingredients, chicken

6 chicken breast halves and 6 thighs

2 cups buttermilk

Vegetable oil

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons paprika

Salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients, biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1¼ cups milk

Preparation, chicken

* Wash and dry chicken pieces. In a shallow pan, marinate the chicken in the buttermilk, turning 2 or 3 times. Drain, discarding the buttermilk.

* In an electric skillet or heavy fry pan, heat ½-inch of vegetable oil to 375 degrees.

* Place flour, paprika, pepper and salt in a bag; add chicken 2 or 3 pieces at a time and shake until well coated. Place the chicken pieces in the heated oil and fry, leaving the skillet uncovered for crispy chicken.

* Fry on each side for approximately 20 minutes or until browned and crispy. Remove the chicken to an ovenproof platter and keep warm while you prepare the biscuits.

Preparation, biscuits

* In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Stir in the milk with a fork and mix well; the mixture will be gooey.

* Heat the remaining oil in the skillet and drop the mixture by teaspoonfuls into the oil. Fry, turning once. until golden brown on each side, about 4 minutes for each side.

* Drain on paper towels. Serves 6.

* * *

Doris Reynolds is the author of “When Peacocks Were Roasted and Mullet Was Fried” and” Let’s Talk Food.” They are available for sale in the lobby of the Naples Daily News. Also available is a 4-part DVD, “A Walk Down Memory Lane with Doris Reynolds.” For comments and information regarding today’s column, contact Doris Reynolds at foodlvr25@aol.com

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