Purple dragon carrot..
…is new again. This year’s seed catalogs have carrots in many colors. Like purple, although it looks rather more violet to me.
Purple sun carrots - these are almost black
Atomic Red carrots
Yellowstone carrots
The Story of the English Underground, Colonial Edition.Continued.
Chapter: Carrot.
Before carrots were orange – which is Soooooo Modern – so back in the good old Early Modern days, carrots were violet. Or black. And white. Yellow and even red. Just beginning to be seen in orange. Orange is tres Flemish and Dutch. The Dutch are very fond of Orange. Consider it Princely, even. The English, on the other hand, were fine with things they way they had always been. They were latecomers to the orange bandwagon.
Carrots color wheel- 21st AND 17th centuries
Carrot colors are fashion – and have been for the last 400 years.
“A Carrot Sallad.
Carrots boyled and eaten with Vinegar, Oyle, and Pepper serve for a special good sallad to stirre up appetitie, and to purifie blood.”
- 1617 Wm Vaughn in Dining with William Shakespeare. Madge Lorwin.(1976) p. 299.
Willem Frederik van Royen The Carrot 1699
Check out the World Carrot Museum. It’s on the blogroll. Totally amazing.
Tags: 17th century recipe, carrotman, carrots, Dining with Shakespeare, Marge Lorwin, oil, pepper, recipe, salad, vinegar, William Vaughn
Do you think they make posters of the carrot color wheel? It’s beautiful!
It’s government issue- US Department of Agriculture – there must be a poster of it somewhere…