Hey Rab-baht!
September 8, 2010 Today, we're going to talk about carrots.
Or more specifically, carrot cake. You see, for hundreds of thousands of years, bakers have been trying to hide the taste of carrots - which is most charitably described as "dirt-like"- by mixing it with truckloads of sugar and cream cheese icing. This makes even the most rancid of vegetables - aka, carrots - slightly less disgusting and, of course, extremely healthy.
But how does a baker, who is bound by law to disclose that his cake actually contains putrid dirt veg, tell his customers without making them want to vomit?
"That's funny; why do these red velvet cupcakes taste like feet?"
"Hm. I feel like these orange arrows are trying to tell me something about my Canb cake. But what could it be?!?"
"I'm detecting notes of chocolate icing and...is that...? Yes...I think it is! Fetid bunny swill. Huh."Some have tried tweaking the color to muppet blue:
This way instead of imagining carrots - the ingrown hairs of the earth - in your cake, you can imagine synthetic fur - which is of course a vast improvement.
Cak Rot?Sounds about right to me.
Note: Before the carrot cake coalition comes after me, I should mention that I actually love carrot cake. Carrots, however, are evil like the froo-its of the de-vill. Which just goes to show: if you put enough sugar in something, even the most revolting, repellent, repulsive, sickening, nauseating, stomach-churning, stomach-turning, off-putting, unpalatable, distasteful, foul, nasty, vomitous vegetable known to man can be super duper yummy.
Special thanks to peachesrevenge, Simon L., Nora B., Lacey J., Natasha T., and my Mac Thesaurus, which never lets me down.
Reader Comments (215)
I'm so glad other readers saw a dirty word, on cake No. 2. I would be worried if it was just me! Kim
If you really want to shock your taste buds, try fried broccoli. Japanese restaurants sometimes serve it that way when you order tempura. Bleh!
And I agree with one of the previous comments. If you hate any vegetable, it's probably because you've never tasted it cooked the right way.
Wow... I feel like the evil witch. I love carrots but I get them fresh from the farmer's market folks so I guess I'm spoiled. They can be so very tasty on their own and even better in a fresh juice with apples. Mmm. I love carrot cake but I became a picky little snot after I had the world's best carrot cake in a little place in Crockett, CA. The Valona Deli has the best and I've been searching for some comparable for about seventeen years now.
HOW DARE YOU!? carrot cake is delicious and marvelous and the more sugar you add to it to "mask"it the worst the cake is. Because carrots have a natural sweetness that comes out so well in a cake. And I'm not an old person either!!!! but I do like ur blog ;)
LOL
But... But I LIKE carrots. (the hubby loves them, in lots of honey and butter... which is not so different than the cake I guess.)
I love carrots! They're great. And, did you know that red velvet cake used to contain beets? So that first one is at least hinting at a veggie being included...
"The most revolting, repellent, repulsive, sickening, nauseating, stomach-churning, stomach-turning, off-putting, unpalatable, distasteful, foul, nasty, vomitous vegetable known to man" is the brussel sprout. I shudder at the mere thought of brussel sprouts.
I couldn't agree more - carrots taste just like dirt. Every Thanksgiving my (bless his dead-tastebuds heart) husband insists on making his mom's famous "candied carrots." Blech! They do NOT taste "like butter and brown sugar." They taste like dirt - I mean, carrots!
I never heard of anyone not liking carrots before. The most commonly hated seem to be broccoli or brussels sprouts but people don't try to put those into cakes...
I tried to think of a vegetable I don't like but I like all of them. The only way I hate vegetables it covered in butter so you can't taste them.
Any Rosh Hashanah cakes?
I'm gonna have to disagree and say that the most revolting, repellent, repulsive, sickening, nauseating, stomach-churning, stomach-turning, off-putting, unpalatable, distasteful, foul, nasty, vomitous vegetable known to man is, in fact, celery.
I mean, seriously, it's stringy, bitter, and only SLIGHTLY tolerable when chopped into itty-bitty bits and mixed into some poor unsuspecting salad.
No amount of sugar and/or frosting can salvage the flavor of this terrible stuff. Whenever my daughter is watching Wonder Pets, and it gets to the end where they say "this calls for some celery!Mmmmmmm!" I actually gag a little.
At least carrots can be vastly improved by ranch dip.
I feel the same way about zucchini.
Hmph. I like carrots cooked or raw but have little use for carrot cake. Still better than carrot juice, tho.
That's funny, that is precicelt what I call tomatoes.
My perpetually sunny three year old couldn't even salvage the mangled icing carrots. 'Oh, that's a nice... uh, wow, Mama, that's really a cake wreck.'
I don't HATE carrots, but thanks for that horrible hirsute imagery. Fortunately it was redeemed.
"Good morrow, abbot!"
I like carrot cake, but the way you described it, makes me question ma self;)
Broccoli is more revolting, repulsive, etc. than carrots. Notice you can't even make a tasty broccoli cake.
Help... I've never seen I Married An Axe Murderer. Please identify which quote comes from that movie.
Okra. Okra is still monarch of disgusting. Raw, fried, or baked it is still the spitwad of the vegetable kingdom. Not fit for a savory pie much less a cake.
WV: bulluct. Yeah, bulluct.
Hate carrot cake, ADORE carrots.
This blog post makes me sad.
Ah, come on, carrots are yummy and delicious - especially as compared with, say, parsnips! Now there is a *vomitous vegetable*! Ogden Nash said *The parsnip, children, I repeat, is simply an anaemic beet*... evidently he couldn't persuade his kids to eat 'em either. Cooking parsnips will perfume your kitchen worse than broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower cooked together. With a side of liver & onions.
Merry from Annie's Book Stop
I just made two cakes (one chocolate cake, one spice cake) each with a full cup of pureed beets. The chocolate one also had a cup of shredded zucchini and a cup of shredded carrots. Talk about hiding the "vegedevils"... No one suspected a thing! They were delicious! To find the recipes, go to allrecipes.com
Jade said...
... Actually, carrots aren't good for rabbits, either; the amount of sugar in them is too high for rabbits to eat in anything but very small amounts. ..."
My co-worker (who has a pet rabbit) told me this a few years ago, and my response was, "Carrots are bad for bunnies? OK, it's official. EVERYTHING I learned as a child has now turned out to wrong."
Yes, carrots are bad for bunnies.
Mice don't like cheese much, either.
I think that second cake actually says lamb! Hmmmm now that's appetizing!
My favorite carrot cake was at Ponderosa. And the best chocolate cake I ever had was made with sauerkraut.
The key to good carrots is buy fresh organic ones. And don't leave them in the crisper until they turn into a mutant life form. Steamed or microwaved with butter.
As far as I am concerned Leave all the rabbit food to the rabbits. Keep them away fro me in all forms. sugar or not.
Vegetable = YUCK!
Normally, I would not beg to differ but I feel I should stick up for the lowly carrot. Raw carrots are delightful - crunchy, vitamin-rich and crazily orange. Cook them, however, and they spew forth a taste best described as "ptooey". By the logic you propose, a cake based on turnips would be lovely if just laden with enough sugar and plastered with cream cheese frosting. And we all know THAT ain't true.
I actually love carrot cake too, but boy do they ever taste like dirt. Right on again, with another fantastic blog!! Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw a much more repulsive word than carrot in that second picture!
I love the site, but never commented. This one made me laugh. I own a rabbit, and even he hates carrots. He'd sooner bury one than eat it.
Oh, come on, John...don't spare your feelings. Tell us how you *really* feel about carrots! ;)
Aw, I love carrots, although I've never really cared for carrot cake. I will grant that good carrot cake is, well, good, but there are some shoddy attempts out there, and not just the ones you featured.
But we have a good family friend who detest, abhors, and hates, hates, HATES carrots with a passion, so I had to laugh while reading this post. Actually, I think I'll have to send it to her. She'll agree with John wholeheartedly.
Yeah, I saw an entirely different word than "canb". But it has been proven that there is something wrong with me.
This is my favorite post ever. Why?
1) Carrots ARE incredibly disgusting, you're right.
2) Carrot cake, however, is a little bit of heaven.
3) ..."the ingrown hairs of the earth"...hilarious.
4) So I Married an Axe Murderer is one of the greatest movies of all time.
Love!
Twenty years ago my neighbor in Newark, Delaware had a block party. Our adjoining fenced-in back yards were connected by a gate, and it came to pass that the adults of the neighborhood settled into his yard, drinking and smoking and chatting, while the children came into my yard, playing in and around my garden. My carrots were just ready to be picked, so we carefully pulled a few and washed them off with a garden hose. A few adventurous younger children tried them and learned that fresh-picked, tender carrots are sweeter than candy and taste nothing like the wooden replicas sold in supermarkets.
The next January was a cold and snowy one. I didn't have a car, so I was taking my bicycle down to the post office to mail a large and bulky package. Several of the neighborhood children were out in the street, playing in the snow. One of them, a little four-year-old boy, approached me and said something. Bundled up as he was, I couldn't make out what he said. He repeated himself more clearly.
"Can I have a cawwot?"
Obviously, John, you were not that boy.
i like carrots pretty well, but i don't munch on raw ones. i'm not actually a fan of cake in general, but i love carrot cake. the chicken soup recipe i base off of says to use 3 carrots -- i use 2 pounds (similarly with the celery, which i don't munch on raw either). and carrot juice mixed 50/50 with orange juice is yummy yummy yummy! and there's plenty of vegetables i *don't* like.
but bell peppers, which someone doesn't like, oh i could eat ripe ones raw all day long! and the green ones are good lightly stir-fried in the right dishes.
Don't hold back, John. How do you really feel?
Finally someone with a proper perspective on carrots.
yup, i definitely read the canb cake as a "c u next tuesday" cake. I definitely do not want my cake to taste like that
Broccoli is bad, but cauliflower is worse.
Oh, good LORD, why do I have to intervene when people keep posting information that is so clearly WRONG! The most disgusting, vomitous, inedible, vile, gag-eous, cack-tasting vegetable is demonstrably, indisputably, legally defined as the Brussel's Sprout. [*shuddder*]. the only vegetable you can eat, that tastes like it's already been eaten! (Love carrot cake, though!)
Why do I get the impression that you don't like carrots? Am I reading too much into this post?
Despite my absoloute love of carrots (I'll happily eat them raw dunked in cream cheese, nevermind the glory that is a well steamed carrot baton...) again your commentary had me in stitches <3
No wonder why I love you guys...I also don't like carrots and I absolutely LOVE So I Married An Axe Murderer! (Best line is "My name is John Johnson but everyone here calls me Vicki" - obviously)
If you think carrots are the pit of doom of all veggies, you have clearly never had brussle sprouts!
I was gonna yell at you for not loving the wonderful carrot. But now I'm crushed to discover that, after all the geekiness, grammar-nazi-ing, and all-around intellect displayed in this blog, you are, in fact, a Mac user.... My heart is broken.
I have this level of distaste for bananas. The shock and judgment of the yellow "fruit" has followed me all of my days. While I confess my love of carrots I stand in solidarity with your disgust.
Don't forget to have some Kabi-Wabi Woom-Room tea with that Cak-Rot cake!
till you can make a cake with beets, I say pshaw to your distain for carrot cake.