First of all, it's important to decide whether you're going to collect raw carrots or cooked carrots. Both have their own individual merits. Let's take raw carrots first. Raw carrots come in many shapes and sizes, but primarily they're kind of orange and tubular and tapered to a point at one end. In their purest state, they also have green matter sticking out of the untapered end. In collector parlance this is called 'foliage'.
Serious raw carrot collectors are really only interested in carrots in their purest form, i.e. 'with foliage'. A common mistake by amateur carrot collectors is to collect carrots 'sans foliage'. Much merriment has been had at the expense of these poor unfortunates, particularly when they turn up at carrot-collecting events – known in the trade as a daucus caucus – clutching handfuls of defoliated carrots. Indeed, it's not unknown for these naive and innocent babes in the wood to be kicked in the face repeatedly until their noses are smashed and a pool of blood and mucus collects in their now-concave countenances. That said, identifying a pure carrot is not as simple as it might at first appear, so it's perhaps worth taking a look at some less desirable 'sans foliage' examples.
Here's a sorry-looking sampling:
As you can clearly see, no carrot collector worth his salt would be interested in those. Nor, indeed, these:
Mangy looking specimens those. And as for these:
Ah-ha-ha-ha. Had you fooled there. Those are, of course, sweet potatoes. But that does neatly illustrate an important point: you'd be surprised how often the amateur carroteur mistakes the utterly worthless sweet potato for the much more valuable carrot. Of course, to the untrained eye, once peeled and chopped it becomes even more difficult to discern the carrot from the imposter:
Which brings us to our second category of carrot collecting: the cooked carrot. Here we find a complex labyrinth of interrelated interweaving complexity, where boiled carrot enthusiasts compete with roasted carrot crazies for the most perfectly prepared carrot – for, to a roast carrot collector, a parboiled carrot is merely a small step on the way to roasted carrot heaven. Frankly, though, raw carrot collectors consider all of these cooked johnny-come-latelys dreadful fashionistas, seeing ourselves (ah, gave the game away there!) as the true keepers of the carrot-coloured flame. We do concede one point, however: cooked carrot collectors sure do know how to present their wares:
Some lovely display ideas there. Finally, we arrive at the burning question, one any budding carrot collector is bound to ask: just how much are carrots worth in this day and age? The answer to which will no doubt be most pleasing. Because the monetary value of carrots has never been greater than it is today. A cursory glance on eBay reveals that carrots – at least in their raw state – can fetch many multiples of pence:
So you see, as far as collecting carrots go, the sky really is the limit. Or should that be the ground!
* Disclaimer: collecting carrots is neither fun nor profitable.
