I believe that the maroon or purple color is a natural genetic variation of the naturally orange carrot. A few years back, Dr.Pike at Texas A&M noticed the variation, and decided to develop a full purple version of the carrot. Here are some links:





An article on the research




The original research listing




Another small article

The history of these, apparently, is that they were developed at Texas A&M (school color: maroon)as an alternative to having to eat a vegetable symbolizing arch-nemisis and former conference rivals University of Texas (color: burnt orange).

Just returned from India where all carrots are RED, not orange, and not purple. They taste milder than orange carrots, but they are better because they produce is fresher there. ...by the way, oranges are green there.

I grew them last year in my garden. They taste exactly like any other carrot to me.

I've purchsed purple carrots from the Union Square farmers market before and they're pretty good (and much cheaper than Fairway's). They have a more earthy taste than orange carrots.

Hmmm.. Sounds like someone is a Good Eats fan. :-D

Did you call for a nutritional anthropologist? :-D

Paffenroth Gardens (red and yellow tents) is the Union Square Greenmarket stand that sells different colored carrots. They won't be ready for a while, but when they are, come early for them as they tend to sell quickly. He has purple, orange, yellow, red, thumbelina (round), and occasionally Belgian white carrots; often he has baby size carrots in all colors too, it just depends on what stage of planting they're in. (I used to work for the Paffenroths.)

Carrots were purple originally, until the Dutch decided to mess up the carrot's genes and make them orange (their national colour no less). The different colour caught on quickly and the world has enjoyed orange carrots ever since.

ohhh

I almost thought it was some inappropriate image appearing on my desktop at first.

Don't peel the purple carrots! The purple was only skin deep on the ones I bought last summer. Peeling one turned it into a regular orange carrot.

Beautiful pictures, Joe S...and thanks to Joe D. for inspiring me to make purple carrots for the health benefits - I was just going to do it for the pretty colors.

One of the farmers at the Union Square Greenmarket will have purple carrots, as well as yellow, orange, and stubby carrots, later this summer. Here's a photo picture from last year when they were $1.50 a bunch. I don't recall the farm's name but they're on the west side of the market next to the smoked trout guy on Saturdays.