Why are carrots orange? It is political
No, the image above does not some show some collection of freshly genetically designed hypercarrots in various colors of the rainbow. This is the spectrum of colors carrots used to have – and in some regions of the world you can still find white, yellow, red and purple carrots. In most countries however, carrots tend to be orange nowadays. Why is that?
They’re orange for entirely political reasons: in the 17th century, Dutch growers cultivated orange carrots as a tribute to William of Orange – who lead the the struggle for Dutch independence – and the color stuck. A thousand years of yellow, white and purple carrot history, was wiped out in a generation.
Although some scholars doubt if orange carrots even existed prior to the 16th century, they now form the basis of most commercial cultivators around the world. Presumably crosses between Eastern (purple), Western (white, red) and perhaps wild carrots led to the formation of the orange rooted carrot sub species. Turkey is often cited as the original birthplace of the hybrids (or mutations) of the two groups.
Whatever the origins, the Long Orange Dutch carrot, first described in writing in 1721, is the forebear of the orange Horn carrot varieties so abundant nowadays. The Horn Carrot derives from the Netherlands town of Hoorn in the neighborhood of which it was presumably bred. All our modern, western carrots ultimately descend from these varieties. Hypernature avant la lettre.
Source: Carrot Museum. See also: Hyper fruits, Comeback of the ‘ugly’ fruits, Better than the real thing.
Does color say anything about how the different carrots taste? Perhaps the orange ones are the sweetest. Or is that just a big lobby by a rabbit called Bugs?
A similar thing has also happened with apples and pears.
Isabella Dalla Ragione is trying to recover these “lost varieties” and cultivate them in her garden in the North of Italy. She scans remote areas to find varieties and uses Renaissance paintings to identify them.
As an Indian In the Netherlands, I have seen both red and orange carrots. In India, the red variety is predominant, specially in the North. The red carrots are larger, much sweeter, and have more juice, so are primarily used in salads and juices. The orange variety is blander and used for cooking, because its less mushy when cooked. The Dutch version is closer to the second category.
Oh and the purple ones taste different, and supposedly are good for stomach problems. No idea about white ones.
Just my 2 cents