[Sca-cooks] The Purple Carrot Returns and then Some

[Terry Decker]

Queen Anne's Lace is the wild variety of Daucus carota.  It's root is white 
and is difficult to differentiate from parsnips, so that it was not formally 
identified as a seperate plant until the 1st or 2nd Century.  Genus Daucus 
is of Eurasian origin.  While the white Queen Anne's Lace became the 
standard European carrot (probably in prehistoric times) while colored 
carrots developed in various parts of Asia and the Near East.

The Romans probably ate white carrots, but at least one fresco suggests they 
may have known about some of the Asiatic carrots.  Unfortunately, I haven't 
seen much evidence beyond that.  The first reference to yellow carrots is 
from an 10th Century Arab text locating them in Asia Minor.  An Andalusian 
text comments on a taste test between yellow and red carrots (probably 
brought from Central Asia during the Islamic Expansion).  In taste and 
texture, the red was favored.

The Asiatic carrots apparently crossed into Christian Europe from Moorish 
Spain in the 13th Century.

The orange carrot is most definitely Dutch.  The orange color is probably an 
offshoot of trying to develope a sweeter carrot rather than a deliberate 
attempt to make an orange carrot.  Orange carrots appear in late 16th 
Century Flemish paintings and the orange varietals being bred in Holland 
were recorded in the 17th Century.

BTW,The Dutch introduced the cultivation of colored carrots to England in 
the 14th Century.

Bear

>
> After my original inquiry, I did a little bit of research on the history 
> of the carrot, and it
> appears that the carrots of antiquity were, for the most part, 
> unpalatable, and used for medicinal
> purposes mainly. Apparently, carrots could be found in red, white, yellow, 
> purple and even green.
> A few references claim that it was the Dutch who bred the orange, sweet 
> carrot, in homage to one
> of their national colors.  This is not to say that other carrots of the 
> middle ages were not sweet
> (I believe the Romans grew sweet carrots), merely that the first carrots 
> discovered were not
> sweet, and required a 'green thumb' to make them so.  A few botanical 
> references indicate that
> what we know as the modern carrot today is a cultivated form of the common 
> weed known as Queen
> Anne's Lace.
>
> William de Grandfort