Carrots was [Sca-cooks] Period squash

[Terry Decker]

Red and purple carrots which are believed to originate in Afghanistan were
brought into the Mediterranean basin from Central Asia by the Islamic
expansion.

Yellow carrots are first noticed in Asia Minor during the 10th Century.
Yellow carrots are a mutation of the red and purple carrots and lack the
anthocyanins which produce the red and purple colors.  Red and yellow
carrots are recorded in 12th Century Andalusia.

The Asiatic carrots probably entered Christian Europe between the 10th and
11th Centuries and had largely replaced white carrots in northwestern Europe
by the 13th Century.  They are known to have been introduced into England by
the Flemings in the 14th Century.

In the 16th Century, Flemish hybridizers while trying to produce larger,
firmer, better tasting carrots bred yellow and red carrots together
modifying the anthcyanins to produce an orange color.  Our modern carrots
come from about five breeding lines of Flemish orange carrot.  These were
formally described in the 17th Century.

Because Buecklaer is a Flemish artist, you get orange carrots in his
late-16th Century paintings.

Bear

>I was especially interested in the orange carrots.
>
>Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann