9

CARROTS ARE ROOTS!

On their next visit, the children brought their math textbooks. Ana had suggested it would look more natural to have school books scattered about the table.

They were excited. Today she had promised to teach more about vegetables. They had really enjoyed hearing about the juicy, sweet, good-as-summer fruit Ana had described. But she explained that eventually they would be growing food and saving seeds, and since most fruits grew on sizable bushes or trees, it was better to focus on vegetables and herbs. They had added the new words and definitions before leaving on their last visit. Now they were ready to learn.

As usual, they started with reading from the Bible. They read from 2 Samuel 17, about how the people were hungry in the desert and the kind of food they brought along. Among the foods mentioned were beans, the very seed Ana had shown them last time. Then they read about vegetables called cucumbers and onions. Ana explained about each of these plants, how they grew, and which parts were eaten. The children took notes and sketched from Ana’s examples. They still had a hard time fathoming how you’d ever eat a root. It was bad enough to consider a leaf or a stem, but a root?

“Clare,” she said, “you do still have the first packet of seeds I gave you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And the second?”

The girl nodded her head.

“Did you look inside the packets?”

“Yes.”

“Were the seeds the same?”

“No. The seeds in the second packet were even smaller than the first.”

“Those are for a vegetable called carrot. Carrots are the root of the plant.”

The children didn’t know what to say, so said nothing.

Ana borrowed two of Dante’s crayons and began drawing a picture. She drew a long, orange triangle with a branching, green top. “Carrot,” she said.

“Where is the root?” Lily asked.

“This orange part is the root!” Ana exclaimed. She pulled a brown crayon from the box and drew a line between the green and orange parts of the carrot. “Here, the ground is here.” She tapped her crayon on the brown line. “At the right time, you pull the carrot out of the ground. You eat this part—the root.”

“Do you cook it?” Lily asked.

Ana moved her head slightly from side to side. “It can be eaten cooked or raw,” she said, “either way.”

“Wow,” said Dante. “Just like that, out of the ground? No Store, no microwave? No sauce?”

“Oh, like all food, you can do a lot with it to increase its flavor, but yes, you can eat a carrot just plain, right out of the ground.”

“Sooo,” Clare surmised. “We are going to be growing carrots?”

Ana smiled and nodded.

“Cool,” said Dante.

Each child scrawled the word “carrot” in their notebooks along with their own labeled sketches, being careful to color it just right.

“Ana,” Clare asked, before going home, “when will we plant the seeds?”

“Soon, dear one. Soon.”