Valley Bounty: Carrots

The invention of “baby cut” carrots in 1986 boosted US carrot consumption enormously—and that’s a good thing, all told, for large carrot farmers and for our nutritional intake. But return to giving your carrots a quick scrub at the sink, and you can put your carrot dollars in a local farmer’s pocket, and enjoy sweet carrots redolent of western Massachusetts soil instead of supermarket. Of course, the other reason we eat a lot of carrots is that they’re versatile: good raw, roasted, pickled, or (occasionally) smothered with cream and cheese, topped with bread crumbs, and baked.

Valley Bounty is written by Margaret Christie