what exactly are "baby veg"?

[Berti]

watching the hairy bikers yesterday on bbc2, there were baby veg used by another chef.
of course we have seen them all, but...........what exactly are they.

are they just veg, pulled earlier than their growing cycle finishes?
if so, WHEN in the growing cycle are they harvested?
I have no clue........someone?

berti

[Millymollymandy]

Good question! I have no idea either. Most veg if you pick it when it is small doesn't taste right as it isn't mature. Perhaps they are bred to be tiny and never grow up to normal veg size?

[red]

sometimes veg that is harvsted small - such as small courgettes or carrots etc, othertimes its a variety that have been developed to be small.. ie baby sweetcorn doesn't become normal corn on the cob if left.

[Green Aura]

I think they are just young veg - and yes they taste of very little, but then they cook them in so much stock and butter etc it probably doesn't matter.

It follows the ethos that we eat with the eyes first.

Some veg are now being bred small. I remember seeing a whole page of "veg for one" in one of the seed catalogues.

[Durgan]

I am going to assume that you are talking about baby carrots. There is no such thing, and those sold as such are poison.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/fooddr ... arrots.htm There is much media coverage trying to reassure the people about the carrots being fit to eat. I am not convinced.

A friend ate a bunch of these carrots as a snack, while watching TV, instead of the usual junk food. His throat started burning, and he attributed the symptoms to eating those cocktail carrots. I avoid them like one would avoid a city with bubonic plague during the middle ages.

As to other baby vegetables, they are probably just small fruiting bodies, like potatoes, beets, parsnips. Actually there isn't that many.

[Millymollymandy]

From that link:

The small cocktail (baby) carrots you buy in small plastic bags are made using the larger crooked or deformed carrots which are put through a machine which cuts and shapes them into cocktail carrots . most people probably know this already.

I didn't know that - I've never heard of or seen such a thing! As for dipping them in chlorine.....

[Milims]

Chlorine - yuk! Thats why I avoid salad in bags like the plague! Wonder if it's the chlorine that your friend reacted to Durgan? Anyway, just to show my ignorance I'd always assumed that baby veg were just that - veg that hadn't grown up! I love this site, I get to learn new things every day from it!

[Durgan]

Chlorine - yuk! Thats why I avoid salad in bags like the plague! Wonder if it's the chlorine that your friend reacted to Durgan? Anyway, just to show my ignorance I'd always assumed that baby veg were just that - veg that hadn't grown up! I love this site, I get to learn new things every day from it!

Chlorine was the cause of the restricted throat condition, according to my friend. He did admit that he had eaten quite a few of the"baby carrots".

When I first encountered those"baby carrots", I was intrigued and thought they would be nice to grow. Having grown carrots most of my life, I had never seen such a carrot. Obviously, because a carrot doesn't grow short and stubby and small and cute.

The culled carrots use to used as animal feed if possible or discarded. Not much return using that procedure, so the shaping method was invented, and made the inventor a rich man. Without chlorine the color is not carrot-like, and the safety skin layer is not present.

[Marc]

Hmm, interesting.
I believe that most of them are just normal veg that is pulled/picked when small, still 'babies' - but at whatever size the market decides to want this year.
I actually like to eat most of my veg before it gets too large but the flavour does does vary with the particular veg (is it the same, better, or worse when small)
I'm interested to hear the disscussion about the carrots. I've no idea about chlorine being used on them but I did stop eating my own organic carrots raw years ago after finding that they affected my throat.
I used to grow them for sale in bunches, so were pulled before they were 'mature' - I ate some as I washed and prepared the bunches.
Marc

[Durgan]

In 2008, I grew the small stubby carrots, but found them a pain to harvest and process. My preference is for the long (12 inches) sort of thin types. As to taste carrots are carrots to my palate.

Carrots
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ATKZH 16 August 2009 Hybrid Carrot Eagle 92A from Stokes. (Belicum X Nantes Hybrid)
Harvested a loosened forkful of carrots. They are excellent quality, and have been utilized most of the Summer.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?CarrotsE Summary: Carrots