Channeling Julia

It has been possible to make soup since the invention of waterproof containers (about 9,000 years ago), so
today we are making cream of carrot soup.

Carrots are one of the three ingredients of a mirepoix - one of the staples of French cooking. Mirepoix is the flavor base for many soups, stocks, sauces and stews. The traditional ratio for the ingredients is: two parts onions, one part carrots and one part celery by weight. The mixture may be used raw, roasted or sauteed with butter. Stock is made with ten times as many bones as mirepoix (and lots of water). Cream of carrot soup is actually a variation of the mirepoix using different ratios of the ingredients.

Carrots can be eaten in a variety of ways - raw, boiled, fried, steamed, in soups, stews, cakes, and breads. The bright orange color comes from B-carotene which turns to Vitamin A when ingested by humans. They are rich in dietary fibre, antioxidants and minerals - a very healthy food.

Over consumption may cause the skin to turn orange on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet. This condition is however considered harmless.

Carrots are staples in the kitchen. We use them so much we tend to forget how good they taste!

These carrots have been roasted with onions and grapes in a Mediterranean style - seasoned with cumin.

During World War II the British encouraged members of the Home Guard and fighter pilots to consume large amounts of carrots. They were told that carrots enhanced night vision - thus the Germans attributed the British successes in the Battle of Britain to carrots instead of the real reasons - the use of radar to guide the fighters and the use of red lights in the aircraft instruments (red light doesn't destroy visual purple in the eyes, so night vision is improved).

Cumin is a relative of the carrot grown for its seeds, just as carrots were originally grown for their leaves. Carrot greens are actually mildly toxic. Always check with the poison control center if eaten accidentally.

This week we are featuring carrots - a root vegetable which is usually orange but can also be purple, white or yellow in color. Today's dish is baby carrots in tarragon butter.

The wild ancestors of carrots are thought to have come from Afghanistan. Over the years carrots have been bred to increase their sweetness and lessen the woody texture of the core. Like some of its relatives - parsley, fennel, dill and cumin - it was first grown for its leaves and seeds - not its roots. The first mention of the root was in the first century CE. Carrots appear to have come to Europe somewhere around the 8th to 10th centuries.

Baby carrots are the immature roots of the carrot plant. They are sometimes harvested this way to thin out a field of the crop or they are intentionally grown and harvested to this size as a specialty vegetable. A California farmer created the original "baby-cut" carrot and called it Bunny-Luv because he was distressed at the waste of otherwise good carrots that had imperfections.

Sweet dreams guaranteed!

Hot chocolate on a cold winter night will make your snuggle with your Valentine much more enjoyable...

Mix cocoa, sugar and milk. Heat up, then top with whipped cream and add a chocolate leaf!

It is popularly thought that the Mayans created the first chocolate beverage about 2000 years ago. The Aztecs made a few changes to the Mayan recipes - sometimes adding vanilla and other spices. Though Cortes brought a cold chocolate drink recipe back to Spain in 1528, supplies of cocoa beans were astronomically expensive and the drink had limited popularity. Hot chocolate as we know it today was developed in the early 17th century, when the Spanish modified the Aztec recipe for xocolatl by removing the chili peppers, adding cane sugar and heating the mixture. Milk was added by the English towards the end of that century.

In the 19th century the Dutch developed a method of separating the cocoa butter from the cocoa solids. Since then chocolate drinks have usually been made without the cocoa butter. So modern hot chocolate has only the fat present in the milk used to make it. Some people prefer to reduce the calories by making hot chocolate with water or skim milk. Others go so far as to replace the sweetener with a diet sweetener or omit it entirely - thus resurrecting the Mayan recipe.

Spices served with hot chocolate include cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom and nutmeg.

This isn't just any ordinary chocolate cake, it's a chocolate ice cream cake!

This one is made with chocolate cake layered with ice cream. Some ice cream cakes are made from several flavors of ice cream shaped like a cake. Frozen confections like the ice cream sandwich are also summertime favorites.

The ice cream cake first became popular in the 1870's - about the same time that refrigeration became practical and ice could be purchased for the home at any time of the year from the roving iceman. Other variations of ice cream desserts include the Bombe

The commercial refrigerator was first used in the 1860's in breweries and in meat packing, but wasn't efficient until the 1870's when ammonia began to be used as the refrigerant. However, ammonia refrigeration units were found to have major safety issues and it was safer to produce ice and ship to the home as needed. Home refrigerators (introduced in 1911) used toxic coolants up until the 1930's when Freon was introduced.

Prior to the invention of practical refrigeration machinery, ice was cut from ponds in the winter and stored in nearby ice houses. There was also a thriving business in shipping ice from the Arctic to Northern Europe and North America up until the 20th century. The earliest known ice house dates from 1700 BC.