Simon Campbell

Posted at 1127 hours on 11/09/08 | Posted in Life, Guest articles

To market, to buy a fat carrot!

Why do I shop on my local outdoor market, instead of choosing the easy option of supermarket. I must be a fool! A guest article by my other half, Angela Campbell

So why do bother, its bloody hard work carrying all those heavy bags in all sorts of weather; parking my car in a pay and display car park where I run the risk of getting a parking ticket for taking longer than an hour or two to do the weeks shopping for four?

It could be so easy. I could go to one of the big four supermarkets not that are not far away from me, park not have to pay or I get my money refunded. I can load all the goods into a large trolley in a covered warm environment listening to pseudo pan-pipe music to make the experience even more inviting!

Even easier, sit at my computer and order all my shopping quickly and easier on tesco.com listening to exactly what I want on last.fm...

But am I? I love people, I enjoy eating quality food that lasts longer and is healthier buying great quality seasonal vegetables that have been grown locally. Less ‘food miles’ and the produce lasts longer. It’s fun! Also I care about local businesses and employment and I feel passionately about my local market town. It’s part of who I am and it makes me feel good.

Let me prove my point.

The carrots I bought from the market last weekend (see above) with their tops on are still in good condition at the bottom of my fridge 8 days later – I’ve only used half of them: I love carrots. In fact my next blog will feature the humble carrot again!

• My market carrots were cheap at 53p a Kg. Supermarket loose carrots are currently 69p per Kg.
• They were grown locally. Supermarket carrots are usually grown in the UK but because of the centralisation of their food distribution, they will have travelled hundreds of miles.
• Because they were local, I’m helping keep a local carrot farmer in business.
• They would have been fresher when they were bought. Carrots are high in Vitamin A and Beta Carotene which starts to denature after the tops are cut and they begin to age.
• Large Carrots complete with tops aren’t available at the supermarket.
• No packaging was used at all. They went straight into my fantastic shopping bag, which I love!

But more than that, I love walking around the Market, everyone seems to know each other. They stand around talking, with their dogs in tow – it has a real sense of community. Stall holders always have a sense of humour. I come away with my local veg, meat, bacon and dairy produce. Fantastic.

The best thing is I drive away with a smile on my face – that’s good for the soul.

I’m sure there are plenty more reasons why it was better that I bought my carrots on Clitheroe Market instead of Morrison’s.

I also bought local beef, cheese both local and national (all British though), gammon, mussels (I dread to think where they’ve come from and I’m sure there are ethical issues – but they were bloody good!), worming tablets for Beasty ( the black lab!!) and some Parma Ham (from Parma I hope!) and lots and lots of veg and fruit.

What do you think??

Carrot trivia: Carrots were originally native to Afghanistan! More interesting carrot trivia!!

24 comments

1. Yvonne on 22/12/08 at 1031 hours

   Angela, you are obviously the fount of all carrot knowledge. Tell me, what exactly can I do with my (organic locally grown) carrot tops? Other than putting them in the compost heap??

2. Colly on 22/12/08 at 1032 hours

   Can you get purple carrots anywhere? Apparently carrots are purple (or used to be) by default - kind of like beetroots. I reckon a purple carrot would impress those who come around for my famous stew!

3. Angela Campbell on 22/12/08 at 1033 hours

   Ah! Colly - you foodie you. Your stew was fantastic.
   You are absolutely correct! The original carrot from Afghanistan was originally purple with a yellow inside - they tasted the same though. French farmers developed the orange carrot! The bloody french. Eh!
   I thought I was in regeneration - why am I talking about carrots?

4. Emma on 22/12/08 at 1033 hours

   ang! loving the article, mum did try to grow her carrots. they were nice, but one inch long!
   em x x

   p.s has big james shaved all his hair off???

5. Andrea on 22/12/08 at 1034 hours

   I’ve got to admit I’m a Waitrose addict at the mo. It’s too easy with a toddler - carpark, good coffee in the cafe, scanner for your goods, so no queues! Terrible really. I’ve just checked the fridge and I’ve got courgettes and corn on the cob from SPAIN! What on earth is going on? I didn’t notice that when I bought them. My carbon footprint is the size of Alaska. Oh dear - now I’m racked with guilt and will have to get an allotment immediately.
   Thanks Ang.

6. Angela on 22/12/08 at 1035 hours

   Many thanks for all your comments - to answer the above:
   Yvonne - Carrot tops. You can eat them -they are rich in protein, minerals and vitamins. They are loaded with Potassium which makes them bitter, so their use is limited. However, to make them edible you could add them to a mixed lettuce salad. You may also use it for garnish. Combine your common sense and your creative skills, and invent something! That’s what makes cooking fun. It is a form of art.

   Some ideas of mine are a carrot top pesto vinaigrette. You can hide the bitterness under the vinegar and sweeten it slightly with some honey or add them to a stir fry,  if you are making a strong tasting soup - add them - it will increase the nutritional value.

   I knew it would turn into a carrot blog!

   Emma - Yes James has shaved his hair off!  Have a look at my library blog and give me ideas on what you think libraries should be like.
   Andrea - Hee Hee - footprint the size of Alaska - get down to that allotment!And you’ve got a great market in the centre of Cambridge - the toddler would love it!
   Angela

7. Louise on 22/12/08 at 1035 hours

   Hello Angela,

   Fantastic, completely agree with you - local, fresh produce - it truly is good for the soul, as well as the body.
   All this talk about food is making me hungry - roll on lunchtime, might even fancy some carrot & corriander soup, homemade & locally produced from the nearby store.
   Keep up the fabulous work, it really is great.
   See you soon
   Lou Williams x

8. Andrea on 22/12/08 at 1036 hours

   I must admit I’m preferring the (local!) parsnips to carrots at the moment (I do actually buy from the market as well as Waitrose)and they are fab roasted in duck fat but I’m needing some other parsnippy recipes so any suggestions?

   Andy x

9. Alistair on 22/12/08 at 1037 hours

   Our favourite parsnip recipie in the Mair-Turnham household are just raosting them in honey, perhaps with thyme this seems to work well. But am sure you know this.

   Alistair

10. Alistair on 22/12/08 at 1037 hours

    I also thought I would mention that in our West Lancashire rural economy study, the local growers(some of the best, if not the best in the UK - due to all that great, fertile black soil)had to move their proper tasty carrot production 100 miles to Yorkshire. Then they had to bring it all back to Lancs (food miles) to pack!!!

    Why you ask? Because one of the big four supermarkets (the one where decisions about our food, our health, our town centres are taken in the US not in the UK), said their carrots were not carrot shaped enough for their uninformed customers. This was because the soil wasn’t sandy enough in West Lancs and carrots need that to grow down.  So the supermarket now has tasteless but correctly shaped carrots, when they could have had the best flavour in a slightly dumpier carrot. Outrageous

    Alistair

11. Angela Campbell on 22/12/08 at 1038 hours

    West Lancs should maybe market weird shaped carrots. You never know!
    Hmmm…......I’m going to have to come with a parsnip recipe now!
    In the meantime. I did my Clitheroe Market shopping this morning and my favorite quote of the day whilst getting my meat from the fantastic Hacking Butchers stall, came from the main man…“Lad!....Before you price up that chicken, pluck it! It’s got more feathers now than it’s ever ‘ad!”
    LOVE IT.
    Bought some fantastic local beef rib…wonderful. Really marbled well with fat.

12. Rob on 22/12/08 at 1039 hours

    Decisons about our food, our health, our town centres are not taken in the US. They are taken by ordinary shoppers. Ordinary people who are capable of making their own choices. If they don’t want to shop at large US owned supermarkets they don’t have but it seems that people really like them. Asda didn’t become a big company over night.

13. Angela on 22/12/08 at 1039 hours

    Rob
    Good to hear your take on the large supermarkets.
    Can I ask, where do you shop? I’d be interested to hear more.
    Angela

14. John on 22/12/08 at 1039 hours

    Need to know more about carrots? visit the World Carrot Museum.

15. Nic Best on 22/12/08 at 1040 hours

    Anyone tried carrot and chestnut soup - it’s rather yummy. And nutmeg is good on carrots and in carrot soup

    Jock Bolton sells purple carrots (occasionally) at Morpeth Farmers’ Market - also purple cauliflowers

16. Angela on 22/12/08 at 1040 hours

    Nic - Rather like the sound of carrot and chestnut soup. Do you have a recipie.

17. stube on 22/12/08 at 1041 hours

    did anyone find out if you can still get purple carrots? If so I’d like to try them at my extensive trial grounds here in the south midlands. Talking of cauliflowers has anyone tried the very deep green coloured one’s I saw in Rome the other week?
    cheers Stu

18. Nic Best on 22/12/08 at 1042 hours

    recipe for carrot & chestnut soup - rough quantities only, I usually make it up as I go along…

    c 750g carrots & chestnuts - in ration 2:1 - or 1:2 if you want chestnut & carrot soup - or anything in between
    c 1 litre veg stock
    c 1 litre water (don’t want it too salty!)
    grated nutmeg

    peel the raw chestnuts (I find cutting them in quarters with a sharp knife makes this fairly easy). You don’t need to remove all the fibre from the chestnuts. Slice the carrots in disks.
    Heat the chestnuts with a tiny splash of oil in a pressure cooker till just catching, add the carrots, nutmeg to taste and the (stock & water) liquid. Pressure cook at high pressure for 20 min.
    Liquidise the cooked soup. Should be creamy and pale orange-brown.

19. "boffin" Lukas on 22/12/08 at 1042 hours

    Hi Angela!

    i love your carrot blog!! simon talked talked to me about it last week-end in norwich, and i really enjoyed reading through it. very amusing :))

    i mostly agree with you, as i enjoy going to the market and think that local producers should get our support. and mostly it really does taste better. what i enjoy most is having a chat to the guy at the cheese stand while taste the delicacies (i’m swiss - what do you expect). 

    but a major issue is the price. in contrast to what you mentioned, here in germany (and the same in switzerland) the prices are a lot higher on the market. you just can’t beat Lidl and Aldi (the german discounters). so the market here is more of a “rich-people-thing”... this is really a shame and maybe it’s not like this in the rest of germany (heidelberg is a rich touristic city full of academics). but i honestly don’t know how to resolve this issue. in the end, it’ll always be a question of what’s cheapest, i fear…

    cheers,
    lukas

20. Lisa on 12/11/09 at 1502 hours

    Purple carrots are attractive and delicious, but be careful cooking them in stew, because it will turn the stew a purple color.  Try cooking them in a separate pot, draining the water, then adding them to the stew at the end.  If you want carrots to cook in stew for the flavor, use normal carrots, then add the purple at the end for the wow factor.

21. Simonski on 12/11/09 at 1507 hours

    Thanks Lisa. We will take a look at that!!

22. Angela on 13/11/09 at 1025 hours

    Lucas and Lisa thanks so much for your comments.
    Lucas - I can understand your comments about Lidl etc - and I fear that the same will happen in the UK. Sad but inevitable. However - When I go to the supermarket - I end up spending more due to the offers, some of which doesn’t get used! When I go to the market I only buy what I want - so I’d take the expensive carrot route if I were you. You’d enjoy it more as well!
    Lisa - thanks for the purple carrot tip - Good thinking. I came across some fresh white carrots the other day - really sweet and delicious.
    X

23. John on 03/12/09 at 1313 hours

    ...fab roasted in duck fat but I’m needing some other parsnippy recipes so any suggestions?

    If you like curry flavour then curried pasrsnip soup is a suggestion. Boil parsnips until soft, liquidise add some yoghurt and a spoonful of curry powder. Simmer for 10 mins or so, season to taste.

24. Angela on 03/12/09 at 1751 hours

    Oh! I’ll try them in Duck fat.

    Parsnips and cumin are a heavenly match. Roasted, mashed or pureed with cream!

    Or…. sliced finely as a crispy topping on a veggie or meat based bake! (top with a little oil or butter to crisp up).

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