My rule of thumb is, if the carrots are served raw and you can identify them like in a salad or sushi, I will peel them. If I'm throwing them into a soup, stew, or other dish in which they are amalgamated into the dish, I don't bother.
Maybe now you have access to better carrots and three years ago, during the early stages of the pandemic, when you were writing the book that was published two years ago you didn't have access to reliably decent carrots.
Carrots that are from the grocery store seem to taste more like dirt than the ones from the farmers market. I think it's because the carrots from the farmers market are fresher and smaller so less bitter dirt taste when you don't peel them. I do peel most of the time but if I don't have a peeler I will scrub them with a clean scrubby. Gets most of the dirt and peel off. I never think that it's ok to put that flavor in a soup or stew either. If something tastes bad why would you put it in a dish that was going to cook for a long time and get all the flavor from that item into your dish. I don't know I guess I don't like Alison Roman that much. She should be a good cook doing what she does but when I watch her I don't think she knows that much about technique.
