[Sca-cooks] Looking for references to orange carrots

[Terry Decker]

> Additional references towards carrots. I too thought the orange carrot was 
> recent invention and that carrots were originally a dark color. As I 
> understand they originated from Afghanistan?
> http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcakes.html#carrots
> This link also has the National Geographic article and a link to the 
> carrot museum in the UK...
> Bless Bless
> Aelina

Daucus carota ssp. carota is the wild carrot.  It has had a tremendous 
natural range since prehistoric times and the point of origin is unknown. 
In Europe, it was commonly white and usually not differentiated from parsnip 
root.

Daucus carota ssp sativa is the cultivated carrot.  The oldest cultivated 
group of this subspecies are the anthocyan carrots, believed to have 
originated in the area of Afghanistan where the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush 
meet, with pigmentation produced by anthocyanins and anthochlors. 
Predominence of anthocyanins produce the darker colors, purples, violets, 
blacks and blues.  Predominence of anthochlors produces the yellow 
varietals.  As the cultivated carrot spread out from Afghanistan, it went 
through some adaptations creating several regional groupings that may be 
considered subspecies.  The cultivated carrot that found its way into Europe 
may be a cross between D. sativa and D. maximus (a wild varietal found in 
the Mediterranean basin), producing a carrot without anthocyans, but having 
anthochlors and carotene.  One of the varietals produced is a red carotene 
carrot.  It is worth noting that a number of Medieval authors considered the 
taste and texture of the red carrot superior, and it is my opinion they were 
referring to the carotene carrot.

The original orange carrots are probably pigmentation variants of the 
carotene carrot (and we have evidence of orange carrots from around 1100). 
These were possibly hybridized with anthoclor carrots and wild white 
European carrots to produce the orange carrots that became predominent in 
the Netherlands and were described by J. H. Knoop in the 18th Century. 
Among what Knoop described are the "Horn" cultivars that are the base stock 
for today's commercial carrots.  These particular orange carrot varietals 
probably didn't exist much before the 17th Century.

Bear