The bright, orange, fleshy, root vegetable that we know today as the carrot, is a far cry from its wild ancestor, a small, tough, pale-fleshed, acrid root plant. The wild Carrot – Daucus Carota – is one of the many plants which belong to the natural order Umbelliferae. It is a common plant in pastures, and by roadsides, and especially likes light soils, where it can soon turn into a weed.
Lore
To unravel the long history of the carrot, you have to go back about 5,000 years ago, when the root was found to be growing in the area now known as Afghanistan. Temple drawings from Egypt in 2000 BC show a purple plant, which some Egyptologists believe to be a purple carrot. Throughout the centuries, Arab merchants traveled the trade routes of Africa, Arabia, and Asia, bringing home to their villages the seeds of the purple carrot. During these years, the vegetable appeared in a variety of hues ranging from purple to white, pale yellow, red, green, and black (but never orange!).
In Roman times, carrots were purple or white. By the 10th century, purple carrots were grown in Northern Iran, and Pakistan. Moorish invaders are thought to have brought the purple and yellow variety from North Africa to Southern Europe around the 12th century. By the 13th century, carrots are known to have grown in the fields of France and Germany.
Purple, white, and yellow carrots were imported to southern Europe in the 14th century. Black, green, and red carrots were also grown. Flemish refugees eventually introduced the vegetable to the shores of England in the 15th century. Orange roots, containing the pigment carotene, were not noted until the 16th century in Holland - this only came about thanks to patriotic Dutch growers who bred the vegetable to grow in the colors of the House of Orange. By the 1700s, Holland was considered the leading country in carrot breeding and today’s “modern” orange version is directly descended from the Dutch-bred carrots of this time. In an attempt to “nationalize” the country’s favorite vegetable, they began experiments on improving the pale yellow versions. These were crossed with red varieties containing anthocyanin to produce orange-colored roots. Successive hybridization intensified the widely recognized “orange” color of today.
Production
Napoleon imports their pickled/sliced carrots from both China and Peru. The carrots are processed in an environmentally-friendly-sustainable agriculture methods, and processed to provide you a delectable addition to our marinated/pickled vegetables to include artichokes, asparagus, beans, corns, mushrooms, peppers, and snap peas.
Our vegetables are all hand-packed, at the peak of freshness, washed cold and then packed in a special hot brine of herbs, sometimes oil, spices, and vinegar – and keep their bright appearance/crisp taste/fresh flavor from the field in the jar to your home.
These products are cholesterol/fat free, and low in calories/carbs, too. We are please to provide you our marinated/pickled vegetables year-around. They can be served cold as appetizers, tossed into salads, wrapped in deli meats, and/or served with our delicious baby corns, mushrooms, olives, and peppers in a beautiful antipasto platter.
Reference: www.carrotmuseum.com