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Interestingly, the "default" carrot in India is not orange, but purple. Which means there is a good billion-plus people for whom "a thousand years of carrot hi
by jpatokal 12y ago
Interestingly, the "default" carrot in India is not orange, but purple. Which means there is a good billion-plus people for whom "a thousand years of carrot history" have not been wiped out.
There are non-orange carrots in my local supermarkets in Sydney on occasion as well, but they're considerably more expensive and don't actually taste any different, so there's not much of a market.
- semi-extrinsic 12y agoHere in the UK you can get purple carrots as well, but they're most prominently on display before Halloween.
- jmspring 12y agoPlenty of non-orange carrots available here in the bay area at non-big chain stores and natural food stores. I typically get a bunch that is a mix of white, red, orange, and purple. True, orange is the dominant one however. Carrots are a bit of a pain to grow, but I've had purples and reds in the past.
- jccalhoun 12y agoI was wondering if they tasted different. good to know.
- SeanLuke 12y agoActually they do taste different. The orange carrots are sweeter and richer than most other carrots available to us. For this reason my kids will only eat orange (believe me, we've tried). I have wondered if it was the taste difference which led to orange carrots rising to dominance (even if through selection by a cartel).
- kondro 12y agoThe purple ones probably have changed a lot less over the last 50 years than the orange ones which would've had a lot of effort put into them to even compete with other orange carrots.
- train_robber 12y agoHmm, a bit surprised! I haven't seen a lot of purple carrots in India, atleast in my part of the country (Kerala). Default carrots for me is still orange. I came to know of the existence of purple carrots only very recently.
- jpatokal 12y agoHuh, interesting, maybe it's a regional thing? In and around Delhi the default carrot is definitely purple (well, maybe closer to red, but definitely not orange).
- adiM 12y agoGrowing up in India (different places in north India), I never saw a purple carrot, or a carrot of any color other than orange. I have only seen them in USA and Canada (not lived in Europe, so didn't know about it).
- dummyfellow 12y agosurprising, my exp. in north India is that we have predominantly red carrots, and orange ones have entered only in last 10-15 years, though even for me purple/white carrots are rare.
- jballanc 12y agoPurple carrots (well, we call the "black" carrots) are fairly common in Turkey too. Additionally, Turks have a beverage made from fermented red carrots called Şalgam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Şalgam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Şalgam)...it's very good!