A brief history of carrot colours

Today I mentioned that carrots weren't always orange. I thought they were originally red, but thought I'd best check if that was true. And I have found some lovely sites about carrots, including the Carrot Museum (yes, really!) and Hungry Monster websites, to help me answer this question.

The first recorded users, Egyptians, had purple carrots. Or at least, they drew purple carrots; who knows, maybe they fancied a more exciting colour scheme than they found in their veg patches? The root colour may have been a little academic, as the Egyptians only ate the flowers and leaves of the carrot. Later, Roman carrots were purple or white (the same colour as wild carrots). The Greeks, whose carrot colour isn't recorded, used carrots as an aphrodisiac: this may yet explain the fecundity of rabbits. Asian (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran) carrots were mainly purple.

The Romans, Moors and Arab traders brought carrots to the rest of Europe, including the UK. Early European carrots were mainly purple, white and yellow, although black, red and green were known too. The orange carrots that we know and love now were actually an extreme act of patriotism, when Dutch growers bred orange carrots from yellow ones, to match their national colours. These gradually replaced the yellow and red carrots that were popular in 16th century England (this may be the origin of my misconception about early carrots being red).

Carrots may not always have been used as food; early carrots were medicinal rather than food crops, and used in the Middle Ages for everything from syphilis to dog and snake bites. Ironically, purple carrots are heavier in anthocyanins, may therefore be more healthy than orange carrots, and are currently experiencing a popular (though not yet in our local Tescos) comeback. They have however made it to Sainsbury's, possibly as a result of that well-known Roman carrot-eater Russell Crowe working as a veg buyer (yes, really! again) there.