If you were walking through the markets and haven’t been game to pick up the yellow or purple carrot yet, you should. The Heirloom carrots available to today are sweet like the orange carrots you are used to.
Carrots come from the same family as parsley & fennel & were used for their tops, seeds and flower in their early history. The early carrots were, red, yellow & purple, they were not as sweet as the ones we eat today and were woody in the centre. I don’t remember the last time I had a carrot that was woody inside.
There is a story that it was the Dutch that crossed a red & yellow carrot to get an orange carrot. A tribute to the house of Orange. Historians believe it was the Dutch but may have been done a bit earlier than William of Orange?
As a form of natural selection it has since developed to the sweet orange carrot we have today. But as everything what was old is new again and the Heirloom carrots as they are known are readily available at the farmers markets. Buy some and give them a try, see if you can make the family think they are seeing things.
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