[Sca-cooks] Period carrots

[Decker, Terry D.]

If you are interested in purple foods, you might want to check out Dr.
Leonard Pike of Texas A&M who is breeding maroon carrots.

I'm curious as to why you think

>         Because I am fascinated by all purple foods, I've
> been doing some
> research into period carrots.  So my eyebrows shot up when I
> saw the SCA
> Cooks digest from Monday with the following message:
>
> >From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
> >Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period squash
> >
> >> > If you go to
> >> > http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/b/beuckela/
> >> > and look at the vegetable market, you can see some period Flemish
> >> > squash.
> >> >             Jeffrey Heilveil M.S.

If you are interested in purple foods, you might want to check out Dr.
Leonard Pike of Texas A&M who is breeding maroon carrots.


> in the entry on carrots (a) "The first sign of truly orange carrots is
> in Dutch paintings of the C17th"; (b) "They [orange carrots]
> were first
> described, also in the Netherlands*, in the C18th; (c) "From
> contemporary
> botanists' descriptions, and in particular from a a paiting
> ('Christ and the
> adulteress', Pieter Aertsen, 1559) it is clear that all these
> carrots were pale
> yellow or purple".  So, I looked at the reproduction of that
> particular
> painting on the Website cited above ... and the carrots
> looked orange to me.
>
>         My preliminary conclusion is, therefore, that the
> apparent orange colour
> of the carrots illustrated on this Website is only an
> artefact of the image
> reproduction technology, since the expert - Alan Davidson -
> and his sources,
> who have presumably seen the originals, describe the carrots
> in 'Christ and
> the adulteress' as 'pale yellow'.  Colours are notoriously
> difficult to judge
> from reproductions, I believe.

A great deal depends on how the painting was reproduced.  I suspect this is
either a transparency or a photograph which has been scanned.  The
resolution is too fine for most digital cameras and the image does show the
screen patten one would expect with a printed image.  Because photography is
a four color analog process when there is a color shift in one of the
colors, it effects everything in that color.  The other reds and yellows in
the painting do not appear shifted, so I would conclude that the
reproduction is not far from the original.

It is possible that the pigmentation in the original has shifted.

I spent 7 years making my living as a photographer and photolithographer, so
I do know a little about the subject.



>         http://www.cals.wisc.edu/media/news/02_00/carrot_pigment.html
> implies that Davidson's analysis is based upon reasonably old
> research 'About 40
> years ago, a Dutch researcher used paintings depicting
> vegetables to gather
> historical information about carrots.'  So, has anyone on SCA
> Cooks seen the
> _originals_ of any of these paintings, or any more recent
> further discussion of
> whether they depict orange, or pale yellow, roots?
>
>         All the best from Wales,
>
>         Amanda

An interesting site, but they don't mention green or black carrots, which do
exist.

Do you happen to have a citation for the Dutch researcher's work?

While I haven't seen the originals (at least not in 35 years), I have
examined some very good reproductions of some of Bueckelaer's work and I
would say he is either painting orange carrots or the pigmentation has
shifted.

Bear