mealtime stories

And you believed this as true and real, because you haven’t seen otherwise.

But last week on our grocery run at the farmer’s market, we found purple peppers, purple carrots, purple beans and green tomatoes. We were surprised, and by your reactions to our stories, we assume you were too.

A friend told us how purple carrots are heirloom and in fact, the old variety that came earlier than the orange one we know so well. Say what?!

So, we did a little digging on carrot history (as you do)…

a glimpse into carrot history

The earliest known carrots were grown in the 10th century in Persia and Asia Minor or present day Afghanistan and Iran. These “wild carrots” were originally purple or white with a thin root. A mutant then occurred which removed the purple pigmentation resulting in a new race of yellow carrots – from which orange or modern day carrots were subsequently developed.

So, carrots were originally recorded as being cultivated in present day Afghanistan as a purple or yellow root. The yellow rooted carrot made its way to Europe by the 13th century.

The Dutch were the ones to selectively breed the orange carrot. Modern genetic studies show that they took the yellow rooted carrot and over generations, created orange carrots that were larger, sweeter, more densely packed with nutrients and kept better in storage.

They thought the fad for sweet oranges would make people like other orange foods. This led the orange carrot to be the dominant type of carrot planted across Europe. The carrot was also made the official Dutch vegetable!

Humans have been genetically modifying foods since farming began, selectively breeding crops that were more desirable and resilient. Can you believe these “defined” colours we know and see today are all due to selective breeding? It’s mind-boggling how much man has fiddled with nature to feed his own needs and potentially capitalistic ones.

To think colonialism didn’t spare the good ol’ carrot… Just like us, vegetables could be flowing if we just let them be.

If you are keen to know more, Vox has infographics showing what years of breeding has done to corn, peaches and other crops. The purple carrot made a come back for the first time in five centuries in 2002 and later in 2014.

Sources:

http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/history.html
https://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/food-drink/why-carrots-are-orange-2027280
https://sister-republics.blogs.rutgers.edu/2016/04/carrots-selectively-bred-from-the-land-of-orange/