Carrots

Red Baron likes to stroll around the Münstermarkt, the market around Freiburg's minster church.

Here he discovers rare food items like homemade redcurrant jam. 

Red Baron loves carrots and likes to eat them raw, while he detests them cooked. My mother used to dice potatoes and carrots and cook them together,  calling the dish Möhren und Kartoffeln durcheinander (muddled up) gekocht.

She served the meal once a week, and as a boy, I devoured it until one day, I had overeaten. I felt sick; I had to throw up. Since then, I have felt sick whenever I only perceive the smell of that dish. 

It is not as bad as with the Swiss celebrity, chef Meta Hiltebrand, who suffers from a banana phobia. During a cooking show on television, she said, "If someone near me unwraps a banana, I leave the room. I can't stand the smell and can no longer speak. If things go badly, I even collapse." She will definitely never serve a banana split.

Red Baron eats his carrots raw.

Last Saturday, I became electrified when I spotted dark red and yellow carrots at one of the organic market stalls*.

*Only God knows whether they are all organic these days

The lady at the stand answered whether the exotic carrots could also be eaten raw in the affirmative. I bought one of each, and here is my verdict. 

The dark red variety tasted not like a carrot but more like kohlrabi. The yellow variety tasted like a carrot, but the flavor was less intense. So in the future, I will stick with the classic carrot, although there are differences in taste even with those.

The carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus) called Möhre in high German has many regional names mainly derived from Rübe (turnip) as there are Mohrrübe, Gelbrübe, Gelbe Rübe, Rüebli, Riebli, and simply Wurzel (root). The Daucus carota within the Umbelliferae family is only known in cultivation. Wikipedia adds, "Different colored carrots are descended from different clans of origin: the white ones come from the Mediterranean area, the yellow ones from Afghanistan, as well as the red-purple forms."

©Wikipedia/ARS

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers have selectively bred carrots with pigments that reflect almost all rainbow colors, "More importantly, though, they're perfect for your health."

 
Long live the carrot! 

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