So what’s with purple carrots (and potatoes and whatever else).
Surely they can look dramatic on the plate. But why is it they mostly seem to have an orange core? That’s just weird. Are they dyed ? Today I’m cooking some purple carrots that for the first time are purple all the way through. We’ll see how they taste.
Could someone enlighten me as to the point of this beyond the visual.
(I get the idea behind Heston carrot and beet switch up, it’s on my todo list, but this doesn’t really seem to be the same thing, especially the ones with the orange core).
Genetic expression is anthocyanins. I grow purple carrots because they are an heirloom variety. You can debate the benefit of either but at the end of the day, spice of life and all.
Carrots are just domesticated Queen Anne’s Lace. Original carrots were purple. Until recently they were white or cream. Orange carrots are historically new:
Well, colour me ignorant!
Many thanks for this.
I am still curious about the ones that are purple on the outside and orange on the inside. Just an exotic breed or some fakery?
The all purple ones last night (not tasted blind) seemed to have a slightly earthier taste and not so ‘carrots’, but a most unscientific test.
I don’t carrot all. Actually, I do, but I wanted to use that pun. Cooked some heirloom carrots yesterday. In butter, added some cayenne, then honey. Delish.
They’re like tomatoes. Some were “originally” darker or lighter and then there are all those heirloom tomatoes.
But the original tomatoes in Peru were very small berries that were yellow or orange. The tribes in Mexico got hold of them somehow and kept planting the seeds from the bigger berries. And it turns out that the lycopene in the yellow/orange tomatoes is different from that in the red and it is more easily absorbed by humans. Those are the ones that the Spanish took back to Europe.
As I said, had some purple ones recently that were purple all through. And the purple / orange ones I mention often have a very sharp delineation between the two colours.
