We can hear you asking, is the Infographics Show really going to do a show on a vegetable?
Have those guys run out of ideas?
What next, a video on the origins of a potato?
Actually, potatoes do have an interesting history, but we won’t bother you with that
today.
What we will say is that carrots have a past like no other vegetable, and the reason why
you have orange-colored ones today is a story steeped in politics, religion, violence, and
revolution.
Next time you grab hold of one of those bright hunks of delicious root, remember people,
carrots have come a long way from their rather ugly beginning.
Before we touch on the bloody matter of revolution, let’s first tell you a bit about carrots.
You see, this is a root vegetable, meaning it grows under the ground.
You don’t get many bright and vivid-colored veggies growing underground, and carrots used
to be the same dull color as most other root vegetables.
Just like the turnip, or parsnip, they used to be white.
We are told that carrots contain more genes than humans do, about 32,000.
Two of the recessive genes help build up something called carotenoids in the carrot, and it’s
these chemical compounds that help give carrots their color.
You can trace old school carrots back to Iran and Afghanistan, back when they were white,
but then 1,100 years ago purple and yellow carrots made an appearance on the vegetable
scene.
They were still a bit dark and ugly though, not anything like the beautiful orange ones
we see today.
But then in the 17th century those kinds of carrots would be mostly rubbed from history,
and orange would rule the fields.
For this, you can thank the Dutch.
This is where the violence and revolution comes in.
You see, in the Netherlands from the 16th century there was a ruling dynasty called
the House of Orange-Nassau.
These folks belonged to the house of…you guessed it…”Orange.”
We think you might now understand why orange was a popular color.
The name Orange by the way comes from French lands which William I of the dynasty inherited,
and so he became William I of Orange.
This house revolted against Spanish rule, and this led to the 80 Years War.
The two opposing kingpins at the start were the Orange dynasty and Philip II of Spain.
Those Orange guys won in the end, and this led to a Dutch Independent state.
It’s thought in all about 600,000–700,000 people died, but this also included other
countries joining to fight the Spanish Empire which were England, Scotland and France.
At the time all over Europe there had been the rise of Protestantism, and the orange
dynasty allied with a bunch of Protestant families from Western Europe to fight the
Spanish Catholics.
We now might remember that over in England relations between Catholic and Protestants
were tense indeed, and if you’ve seen our punishment shows you’ll know many people
on both sides lost their heads, and sometimes legs.
What you need to know is that the rise of Protestantism in Europe since Mr. Luther nailed
his “Ninety-five Theses” containing the need to reform wicked Catholic rule, was an
extremely violent and paranoid time.
William III of orange became a center figure and the most famous William from the Orange
dynasty.
Even now in Ireland you have “Orange Protestants” that you might see walking through the streets
and celebrating on St. Patrick’s Day.
Orange is also in the flag, we are sure you know.
What we are trying to say is that orange was a really, really big deal.
It was a representation of ethos, power, beliefs.
What eventually happened in England was an invasion by William III, and the upshot of
that was orange Bill becoming King of England after marrying King James’ daughter.
William was quite the man, and England was never the same again.
So, not surprisingly William was celebrated in the Netherlands, and what better way to
show praise for someone by coloring a vegetable after them.
If you have a powerful dynasty you have of course have to hang on to it, and that requires
a good bit of public relations.
Prior to the veggie transformation the ruling members of the family would paint houses orange,
plant orange trees everywhere, and they even built castles with names such as Oranjewoud,
Oranienstein, Oranienburg, and Oranienbaum.
While the Rolling Stones years later would want to paint the world black, the Dutch at
the time tried to give everything a touch of orange.
During this period the Dutch were known, the farmers at least, as formidable carrot growers.
And those farmers came up with a way to make orange carrots, something for the world to
behold.
What they did was cultivate carrots with higher amounts of beta carotene in them.
They called this the royal carrot.
Now, we must tell you here that some critics say the Dutch weren’t the first to grow
orange carrots, and they were around in the Roman Empire.
Others will tell you that wild carrots just got together in their white, yellow and purple
hues and some babies popped out orange.
What is definitely a fact though, is that the Dutch farmers ran with their orange carrot
and never looked back.
At first such glorious carrots were said to be a royal treat, but soon most of the Netherlands
and the rest of Europe wanted only the shiny orange ones.
The rest were just ignored, like that ugly duckling you’ve heard about.
As one historian writes, the orange carrot became a kind of brand for the dynasty, and
it was very exportable.
A different historian writes, “The Dutch started growing this in great abundance in
tribute to William of Orange to such a degree that almost all other forms of carrot had
gone out of mass agricultural production...in this very roundabout way our carrots are orange
because our oranges are orange, and they've been that way for political reasons.”
These days all you seem to see are this orange variety, and of course now we don’t hold
them or eat them with a sense of Protestant pride, as a kind of worship for William.
William, or King Billy as he might have affectionately been known to some Scots or Northern Irish,
had quite the illustrious life.
You might not know that he is the last person ever to successfully invade that tough little
country called England.
You may not also know that the Big Apple, aka, New York City, used to be called New
Orange.
That’s because the Dutch changed the name when they recaptured it from Britain.
This was just more marketing from the Dutch, who wanted to show just how strong Billy and
his armies were.
It didn’t last long, and the English city of York soon started to figure in the USA
again.
Still, we wonder if you knew that New York and carrots have quite a close connection
in that they were both part of a public relations strategy of the once mighty Dutch.
William didn’t have a heroic death, though.
His horse ran over a mole’s burrow and tripped.
Bill fell off, breaking his collarbone.
Healthcare wasn’t exactly modern back then and this break led to complications including
pneumonia, and this was the end of William.
So, next time you pick up a carrot you can be proud of holding some big slice of history
in your hand.