Skip to main content

Purple Carrots!!

I wrote about these a long time ago, but since then I've learned a lot more about them so I thought I'd re-share... besides, they're really interesting to me :)
I hadn't seen (or heard) of purple carrots until we arrived here in South Asia. I remember learning the word for Carrot and then going to the veggie seller guy to ask for carrots. When I asked him, he pointed to some red carrot-looking things and some purple carrot-looking things. I thought he didn't understand my Hindi, so I repeated the word but got the same response. So, I decided to try the purple carrots.
I read up a little on them (there's not much out there), but aparently they originated in the Middle East around Afghanistan and then made their way over to South Asia. I also read that carrots used to be very thin, red, purple and black - and terribly bitter. The orange color didn't appear until the 16th century when enterprising Dutch growers used a mutated yellow carrot seed from North Africa to create a carrot in the Dutch Royal Family's official color - orange. I thought that was interesting :)Anyway, they tasted almost the same as a regular carrot. If it was a blind taste-test I probably wouldn't have noticed. BUT one thing I did notice was how they make great dyes... my cutting board and hands turned a light shade of purple - as well as my teeth and tongue! :)
Anyway, thought I'd share (I don't have much to share right now since I'm not out so much... I only have 1.5 weeks left in the 1st trimester, so hopefully I'll get out more :))...

Comments

Emily said…
I never tried the purple carrot. I kinda wish I had now! I used to wonder if I could use beet juice to dye my hair pink. Maybe I should've tried for purple carrot hair!
Bri said…
yum!
Erin G said…
I would only eat the purple ones, just for fun.

My hubby will be pleased to know why carrots are orange. As a Dutchman and a Clemson fan, he is all about ANYTHING orange!

They have purple cauliflower here, I'm going to buy some this fall when they have it at the farmers market again.
Purple carrots!?!? Oh my goodness. How funny that carrots were "altered" to make them orange! :)
Anonymous said…
I am so glad to know such random things about carrots!! That is so cool!! how long does it dye your hands and teeth?
Anonymous said…
Very interesting!!!!
SouthAsiaRocks said…
It didn't dye them for too long, but I bet if you ate them a lot then your teeth might get a little funky-dyed :)
Misty Burns said…
hilarious! i am always learning something new when i read your blog. amazing! :) at least they taste good!
that's CRAZY!!!!!!! I've never heard of that!!
Shannon said…
hmmm...I've never noticed purple carrots. Maybe I just assumed they were something else. I wonder if their vitamin and mineral content is different than the orange ones...
SouthAsiaRocks said…
yeah, the vitamins and stuff are supposed to be very different. The purple carrots are supposed to be very hight in anti-oxidents (where the orange ones don't really have any)... very ineresting :)

Popular posts from this blog

Campa Cola & Exploring :)

Today we had some things to do in the Central part of our city, so while we were there, we decided to take on some adventures :) Adventure #1 - the underground market. This market is pretty crazy. It's actually underground and has electronics & clothes mostly. They sell things pretty cheap, so it's an interesting place to go. Today we got an 64 Gig flash drive/pen drive for about $5. Crazy hunh? Here's Adam and Aashini in one of the stores. They're all REALLY small stores - about 10x10 feet I would guess (but I'm really bad at guessing that sort of stuff :)) We go here a lot to get things, so I guess it's not a new adventure, but an adventure nonetheless. Before the next part of our adventure (the real part of our adventure) we stopped for lunch. Aashini will always eat at McDonalds, so that's where we went :) They just started selling chicken nuggets here at McDonalds, so it's super easy to get her to eat there :) This McDonald's had high chair

Starbucks!

 Starbucks opened in our city last night!!  I'm not a huge coffee drinker... but I was excited about the opening!!  (I think I like Starbucks because of all the green! haha!... Aashini and Diya think the mermaid on the logo looks like me... haha! Maybe it's the weird wavy hair :)... not sure :) ) Anyway, we got there and the line was SUPER long!  The wait time was about 45 minutes!!!  There were so many people there!!!  I tried to get a pic of all the people... (that's why this picture is at an annoying angle... I was trying to get it all in in between the columns :))    Here's Aashini doing a jumping picture!!  The girls tried to do a jumping picture :) haha!  haha!  They had a few spills along the way :)  I never got them both jumping :)  Stuff for sale....  OK, one more because I think they are cute :) haha!  People waiting in line :) Some friends that made it inside! :)  We decided not to wait in line... So we'll

Funny Things - Age Appropriate?

Just wondering... but who thought that putting a HUGE Super scary picture right over the playground was a good idea??  hahahaha!!!  My kids were terrified! :) haha!