There is a World Carrot Museum. It’s only virtual, which leaves me feeling a bit had, but at least there’s a place where you can find the sentence: “Welcome world wide web traveler to the World Carrot Museum, dedicated to telling the fascinating story of the wonderful Carrot.” A clause in the book The Edible History of Humanity sent me searching, but more on that in a minute.
Our hero carrot’s history is “surrounded by doubt and enigma.” As far as we know, cultivation started around 3,000 B.C. in Afghanistan. Imperial Rome grew them for medicinal means and as ingredients for aphrodisiacs. After the fall of Rome, Europe went carrot-less for ten centuries until the Arabs reintroduced them. The original carrots (and I’m talking about the roots that we eat here) were purple, white, or yellow. China developed a foreshadowing red carrot around 1700.
A few years ago I discovered carrots these and other colors at NYC farmers markets. Now regular old orange carrots feel kind of lame. How many purple foods are there, anyway? Not many. Just like there aren’t many interesting punk rock bands any more. So I want to be supportive. I’m working ‘em in the community garden across the street.
But it was that orange carrot that got me to the Museum site. An Edible History claims that folks in the Netherlands tinkered with the carrot long enough to create our modern version in tribute to William of Orange for disentangling the country from Spanish imperialism. While the food on our tables these days is always a result of or reaction to politics, I hadn’t heard of anything so clean-cut as the development of a root vegetable in tribute to an upstart head of state. Alas, the World Carrot Museum dashed my hopes. They cite a Byzantine painting from the 6th century that gives us the orange, carotene-heavy version. And Wikipedia kinda skirts the whole issue. Jay’s imagination thwarted!
What does seem to be settled is that the orange coloring comes from high amounts of beta-carotene, which gets metabolized into Vitamin A when we eat it. Vitamin A protects eyesight. During the Second World War, the Brits circulated rumors that eating enough carrots gave a person superior, even superheroic, night vision, as a way to mask the R.A.F.’s discovery and use of radar, which was proving useful in taking out all of the Luftwaffe planes that were bombing the island to pieces. My namesake was shot down a couple of years after than while he was bombing Germany to pieces.
I mention the namesake because he had red hair. When I was a kid, my family told me that, in addition to superior night eyes, carrots would make my hair red and put hair on my chest.
Apparently my great-uncle wasn’t the guy steering the plane around flak in the night sky.
Also, I am the only man in my immediate family without red hair, and I like my carrots.
Also, the scantiness of my chest hair is embarrassing.