Carrot Trivia 1

All the interesting trivia you never knew about carrots!

If this is not enough be sure to visit the other trivia pages -

Trivia 2 which gives examples of the carrot in the Arts and Sciences together with some fascinating "rock art" discovered by Brian Lee in America. Here you will also find the famous icy sparks microwave effect explained, and examples of carrot tattoos.  Carrots can make antifreeze and see if carrots could unlock the mysteries of the universe!
Were Carrots the first step in cloning?  and so much more .........

Trivia 3 concentrates on Carrots in Literature, Poetry and Quotations.

Trivia 4 starts to register the carrot in Films and Television.

Welcome to the amazing trivial world of the Carrot. You probably thought that the carrot has a very uninteresting life with no significance to the world. Well read on and be amazed how carrots impact on everyday life.

Carrot references can be found in many part of the arts and sciences. Carrots have been included in several major works of art and helped in identifying species in the 17th century using the paintings of the Dutch masters. See some magnificent examples of fine art depicting carrots here.

Carrots are one of the rare vegetables which are more nutritious cooked than raw find out why here.

Carrots are more nutritious when cut by a knife! - read here.

Carrots can make a material as strong as carbon fibre! - read here

Here are Trivia Nos 1 to 35:

• Carrots have the highest content of beta carotene (vitamin A) of all vegetables.

• The Wild Carrot is called Queen Anne's Lace. Click here to find out why.

• The Longest Carrot recorded in 1996 was 5.14 metres (16 feet 10 ½ inches)

• The Heaviest Carrot recorded in the World 18.985 lb 1998 (single root mass)
  John V. R. Evans, USA  See his own page - click here.

• The Biggest collection in the world - Romana. See her own pages here.

• There is a carrot pie flavour jelly bean!

• Both of the words in "Daucus Carota" mean orange.

• Carrots were first grown as a medicine not a food.

• The average person will consume 10,866 carrots in a lifetime

• The Ancient Greeks called carrots "Karoto"

• Carrots flowers are also called Birds nest, Bees nest and the Devils Plague

• Carrots produce more distilled spirit than potatoes.

• Tobacconists in France used to put a carrot in their bins to keep their tobacco from drying out.

• Jeff Chiplis, from Cleveland has a collection of over 10,000 carrot items.  See his own page - click here.

• The Japanese word for carrot is "ninjin"!

• In early Celtic literature, the carrot is referred to as the "Honey Underground"!

• Yes there is a carrot beetle! more here.

• The classic Bugs Bunny carrot is the "Danvers" type.

• It's a myth that Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots - he simply did not like them More details here.

• Carrots are not always orange and can also be found in purple, white, red or yellow.  More information here.

• Carrots were the first vegetable to be canned commercially.

• Carrots might unlock the secrets of the universe. More detail here.

• The carrot belongs to the family Umbelliferae.
• The cultivated variety is classified as Daucus carota, variety sativa.
• You get between 175,000 and 400,000 seeds in a pound - a teaspoon can hold approximately 2000!
• The Americans know the wild carrot as Queen Anne's Lace, wild carrot, rattlesnake weed & American carrot.
• The carrot is a member of the parsley family including species such as celery, parsnip, fennel, dill and coriander.
• If your first name is Carrot it has made you happiest when you are expressing in some creative, artistic way, and not conforming to strict routine. Find out more.
• Holtville, California dubs itself "The Carrot Capital of the World." with an Annual Festival, now in its 60th year. Check out more here.

• The Anglo-Saxons included carrots as an ingredient in a medicinal drink against the devil and insanity.

• The Greek foot soldiers who hid in the Trojan Horse were said to have consumed ample quantities of raw carrots to inactivate their bowels.

• The Ancient Greeks called the plant Philtron or Bird's Nest.

• Gentlemen in Teheran in the 1870's took carrots stewed in sugar as an aphrodisiac to increase the quality and quantity of sperm!

• Believe it or not School in the Uk were given official instructions on how to eat carrots! - click here.

• In Suffolk, Carrots were formerly given as a specific for preserving and restoring the wind of horses.

• In August 2005 Ozlem Aydin wrote a thesis on the mathematical analysis of peeling of carrots, to the graduate school of natural and applied sciences of middle east technical university as part of the requirement for a Masters Degree in Food Engineering.

• If you dream of carrots - it portends prosperity and health; for a young woman to eat them denotes she will contract an early marriage and be the mother of several hardy children!!

   

Next 100 + trivias

Vegetable or Fruit??

In the European Union Jam Directive, written in the 80s, which describes the parameters required for a product to be labelled as jam or marmalade and from which the UK Jam and Similar Products legislation is based, there is the phrase "for the purposes of this directive, tomatoes, the edible part of rhubarb stalks, carrots, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and water melons are considered to be fruit". This was introduced to pacify the Portuguese who are strongly into Carrot Marmalade!

Of course carrots are not biologically a fruit as they do not carry the seeds, and the above paragraph in the jam directive does not reclassify them as such, just allows them to be used as fruit.

Duerrs, the famous British Jam maker does not use any carrots in their products, although many years ago they did try carrot jam and tomato jam. It is recalled that this was to try out what the products would taste like due to the above mentioned in the jam directive. The unanimous conclusion at the time was that tomato jam was actually very nice but carrot jam was awful! Try this Carrot Jam Recipe.

Marmalade is a curiously British term, marmalade means a jam made with citrus fruit. The term was fought over in the European Community as other countries wanted to do away with it or change its meaning. Marmalade contains citrus fruit (sometimes with something else like ginger or ) and is usually characterised by the cut of the peel. Marmalade is thought to have originated in Portugal, where quinces (marmelo) were cooked with sugar to make a preserve. The British were the first to add the peel back to orange marmalade, to make the preserve set instead of using apple juice, hence the British tradition of orange marmalade.

Carrot is definitely a vegetable. Though vegetable is strictly a culinary term, and open to mis-interpretation. Carrot Marmalade Recipe here.

The Complementary Carrot Museums

Romana from Newport Rhode Island has her own Carrot Museum and has been collecting carrot artefacts since 1993 and now has over a 1300 pieces from all over the world! These range from mugs, artwork, toys, birdhouses, underwear and a toothbrush. Her husband, Charles has even given her three carrot rings!!.

This is surely true carrot madness. Romana has so much stuff it warrants a few pages of her own in the World Carrot Museum. A few pages of photos will give you a flavour of the entire collection. Click here to go there.  Of course her collection includes contributions from the World Carrot Museum.

Should you wish to visit and stay in Armistead Cottage in Rhode Island check out Romana's own Web site here.

See what other collectors get up to on the Carrot Collectors Pages - here.

There is also a small "museum" in Belgium, though really is a collection on public display - see here.

Signing for a Carrot

How do you sign for a carrot for a deaf person? Hold your 1st hand as the sign for a Vegetable and then at same time hold your 2nd hand as the colour; then change your 2nd hand to a Fist hand, back outward; fingers forward. This is how it should look:

A Carrot Thimble

Yes just when you think you have seen everything a new carrot items appears.   A thimble made out of a real carrot. Hand carved by, the artist, a silversmith, is Lucerne Wulf of AZ. She normally makes wonderful silver thimbles, but wanted to try thimbles in other materials. This carrot is from her "vegetable" phase. She also made a thimble from a potato!

The thimble was made in 1995 and was bought it in 1996 at a Thimble Collectors International convention sales mall, by Barbara K. Acchino, who kindly informed the Carrot Museum and supplied the photographs.
 

Just when the Carrot Museum thinks it has seen everything another fantastic find comes along.

This fan is one of many interesting novelty fans soon to be in a book titled "Novelty Fans, Fashionable, Foundational Fun Accessories of the Past" by hand fan expert Cynthia Fendel. The paper mâché carrot is approximately 6" closed and 13" when the fabric leafs at the top are pulled up. The fan style is called "cockade" and simple examples were popular during the late 19th century in Europe and the US. A variety of objects were imitated such as pencils, candles, and bottles. Although Japan made many novelty fans, this is not from far east. There are no markings on the fan. Any comments on this fan would be greatly appreciated.  Click on the picture for a larger image, or here.

Why not visit Cynthia Fendel's web site for a fascinating insight in the world of fans: www.handfanpro.com

More Trivia

• Cut some Carrot flowers, put them in a glass with water coloured with food dye and watch the blooms change colour.
• Howard Hughes always measured every carrot he ate.
• The Polish for carrot is Marchew.
• Researchers at the USDA found that study participants who consumed 2 carrots a day were able to lower their cholesterol levels about 20 percent due to a soluble fibre called calcium pectate.
• the Roman invaders fed carrot broth to their female captives in hope of loosening their straight-laced demeanour.
• In 1990 Crayola added neon carrot colour to its range of crayons
• In the Indian state of Rajastan women are obliged to eat carrot seeds. It is believed the carrot seeds have contraceptive qualities. Learn more on the Contraceptive page.
• A strong decoction of carrot and root make a very good insecticide.
• You get 10 mg of Vitamin A from 20 average carrots.
• Villagers in Creances, France, have been dressing up as carrots all week in August 2003 celebrate the area's 1,000 years of carrot production.
• The Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture employs a Research Professor in Processing Carrots. The Research Professor will examine such priorities as soil conservation, variety evaluation, insect and disease management and harvest and post-harvest technology. See their site here.
• There is as much calcium in 9 carrots as there is in a glass (250ml) of  whole milk.
• For the same amount of calcium in around 9 carrots you would need to eat over a kilo of garlic.
• The Spanish word for carrot is zanahoria, which also means nerd.
• American cockroaches can synthesize beta-carotene it is thought they have special enzymes, or some micro organisms living in the insects' bodies to provide the synthesis.
• The root of Queen Anne's Lace flower is chewed by North African caravaners to protect themselves from the sun, because it stimulates pigment production.
• Black Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes) is particularly attracted to carrot plants.
• It is alleged that Nero ate the last remaining root of the ancient carrot "sylphion".
• China produces 274,900,000 tonnes  of carrots per year.
• Carrot (from American Mountain men terms)  means A bundle of tobacco, wrapped in linen, then whip-wrapped with cords thus forming a crescent-shaped bundle. An early method of packaging and selling tobacco
• The points of the hoops stuck in the ground used in croquet are called carrots - see photo.
• There is a Carrot variety for every letter of the alphabet. Click here to see.
• Wild rabbits do not eat carrots - you have been watching too much Bugs Bunny !
• Climate Action Registry Reporting Online Tool (CARROT) click here to find out more.
• The maximum amount of work produceable by a pound of Carrots is that it will enable a man to raise 64 tons one foot high, so that it would appear to be a very efficient force producer.
• The total area in Britain planted with carrots each year is 9000ha - double the size of Holland's carrot production area. That's 2000 times bigger than the roof area of the new Wembley Stadium or the equivalent of 18000 football pitches.
• The name 'Carrot' is Celtic, and means 'red of colour'.
• Three Carrots give you enough energy to walk three miles.
• One pound of carrots will make approximately six to eight ounces of carrot juice.
• You can make paper out of Queen Anne's lace. Click here to see.
• Carrot: All brides should be given carrots. It supposedly brings luck in the kitchen.
• From 1 lb. of Carrots we can obtain 1 ounce and 11 grains of sugar.
• Carrots are good for dandruff.
• In Cigar Terminology a carrot is composed of 4 hands tied together. The carrot is prepared by smoothing or pressing out the leaves that are to remain outside like a cover. The carrot is tied with fibre.
• Carrot seeds are one half of small spiny fruits called schizocarps.
• Cooked carrots are rated at 49 in the Glycaemic Index.
• In Astrology, Wild Carrots belong to Mercury.
• There is a carrot caterpillar, the larva of the swallowtail butterfly. Picture here.
• Large Carrots make excellent baby teethers.
• Early Native Americans (Mohegans) are recorded to have used carrot roots for food, and to have utilised an infusion of the blossoms to treat diabetes.
• Chinese and Indian writings indicate eye disease was treated by squeezing the juice of liver on to the eye. (Don't try this at home folks!)
• A teaspoon holds almost 2000 carrot seeds.
• If cows eat too many carrots their milk tastes bitter.
• One tiny alfalfa leafcutter bee can pollinate carrots 20 times better than its larger, noisier, more irritable honey bee cousins. Learn more here.
• Why is a carrot more orange than an orange?
• On an average day, the year-round operation  at Grimmway Farms processes 2-1/2 miles of trucks loaded with 10 million pounds of carrots.
• Grimmway processes 40,000 of California's 75,000 acres of carrots.
• The classic Snowman's nose is always a Carrot.
• Bugs on stamps! The U.S. Postal Service has issued a stamp honouring the pesky wabbit in a ceremony on the lot of Warner Bros. studios in Burbank CA.
• An old Polish saying " If your husband is old and weak you must have him to drink the juice from two big carrots and one firm celery".
• In Java the people eat carrot leaves.
• The Greeks thought that carrots cured venereal disease.
• The Arab cultures thought it a possible aphrodisiac.
• One of the old tales is true and one isn't: Carrots won't make your hair curly; but they do sharpen night vision.
• The river known as oskatask sipiy in Cree, literally "river of the wild carrot" runs by the town of Carrot River in Saskatchewan. The town's motto is "Small Town Hospitality- Big Town Amenities".
• Carrot is used in two very common French expressions of the 19th century : "to pull on the carrot" meant to extort a confession from somebody and "to pull a carrot" meant to imagine an excuse to fiddle money or to get a doctor to make an exemption for the military service.
• According to French popular wisdom (!), eating carrots makes people nice and gives them blushing thighs.
• Carrot is a symbolic of fecundity (look it up).
• According to a superstition, a diet of very fresh carrot juice during pregnancy fortifies a child but, should he be red-haired, he will later on have bad instincts.
• In magic, carrot seeds are given to help women wishing to have a baby to conceive.
• The Flaming Carrot was a mysterious and demented comic book superhero.
• Attempts have been made to extract sugar from Carrots, but the resulting thick syrup refuses to crystallize, and in competition with either cane sugar or that obtained from the beetroot, it has not proved commercially successful.
• In April 2002, the British Sun Newspaper carried an advertisement by Tesco, a large supermarket chain, which announced the development of the genetically engineered "whistling carrot." The carrot had been developed to include tapered air holes over its entirety so that when cooked, the carrots would whistle. (April Fool Joke!)
• By the early 1300s, a violet-coloured carrot was being grown in Italy, where it was stewed with honey and served as a dessert.
• the Hebrew word for carrot is "gezer," which also means decree. So munching a carrot is also a request that any evil decree will be withheld in the coming year.
• In traditional St Patrick's day parades in the USA the people on floats throw carrots and cabbages and if you catch one you will have luck all year round. On the same day they also drink green beer!
• Roasted carrots can be used as coffee substitute.
• Carrot syrup is sometimes employed as a sweetening agent.
• Alcoholic tincture of carrot seed is incorporated in French liqueurs.
• When the British Navy blockaded West Indian sugar from entering Europe in the 18th century, chemists made sugar from organic carrots.
• Carrot oil is used for flavouring and in perfumery.
• An extract of carrots was used to colour oleos (margarine) during the fats rationing that took place during WWII
• Considerable honey is manufactured from bees visiting carrot, although the quality is poor.
• Juwarot variety  contains almost twice the carotene of any other carrot.
• William Wells, also known as Apekonit and Epiconyare, was captured by the Indians in 1784 when he was 14 years old. Apekonit is an Indian Word for several plants including wild carrot. Wells had red hair so his Indian name was "carrot top" or "red head.
• Carrot leaves were used to decorate ladies hair in Western Europe in place of feathers.
• Carrots make Antifreeze.
• There is a Gameboy game entitled "looney Tunes Carrot Crazy"
• Carrot Seed oil mixed with cedarwood oil is a good imitation of orris.
• In the Middle Ages, carrot juice was used to make butter a more appealing colour in winter.
• Rent a Carrot Suit here.
• The juice of red wild carrots was used for food colouring.
• The variety Daucus. maritimus, frequent on many parts of the sea coast in the south of England, which differs from ordinary carrots in having somewhat fleshy leaves and is destitute of the central purple flower. In this case, all the flowers of the head have often a somewhat pinkish tinge.
• There was a curious superstition that this small purple flower of the Carrot was of benefit in epilepsy.
• Carrots make a lovely drop of wine.
• The black swallowtail butterfly lays its eggs on plants in the carrot family, and the caterpillars feed on the foliage, so grow a few extra carrots for the butterflies!
• December 6th marks the beginning of the holiday season in many families of Dutch, German and Eastern European heritage. Dutch children eagerly anticipate the arrival of St Nicholas by stuffing their shoes with hay and carrots for Sinterklaas' horse. By morning, if the children have been good, the snacks have been replaced with gifts.
• You can make rattlesnake weed brew from the roots of the wild carrot. This is prepared by drying, grinding, and then roasting a few Daucus roots. Add hot water to a palm full of the roasted roots and let it steep for about 15 minutes before drinking.
• In Afghanistan and India, a fermented alcoholic beverage is made from carrot roots, a flour from dried carrot roots is used as a thickener, and the leaves are eaten in soups and stews.
• The British developed high-carotene carrots during World War II in order to enhance the night vision of their pilots (via massive consumption).
• There is a miniature rose named "Carrot Top".
• Amazon bookstore includes over 200 books with the title "carrot" in them.
• Notice found in the Town of Port Hope Ontario: "Unless noxious weed or weeds are destroyed by June 1st of each and every year, and throughout the season, the municipality may enter upon said lands to cause the noxious weeds or weed seeds to be destroyed, charging the costs against the land in taxes as set out in the Act. Noxious weeds requiring eradication as they appear are Goat's Beard, Chicory, Thistles, Ragweed, Poison Ivy and .. WILD CARROT!
• The name 'Carrot' is Celtic, and means 'red of colour,' and Daucus from the Greek dais to burn, signifying its pungent and stimulating qualities.
• The last meal on the Titanic included creamed carrots in the fifth course.
• The Annual Carrot Festival is held in Holtville, California.
• Queen Anne's Lace is also known as Mother Die, because if you brought it into your house, according to superstition, your mother would die.
• Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota) is the official Howard County's flower, designated as such on September 4th, 1984.
• Nordstroms make fashionable jewellery out of Carrots. see more detail)
• Polish folk always include carrots in the traditional Christmas Eve meal. more)
• From 1 lb. of Carrots we can obtain 1 ounce and 11 grains of sugar, while out of those 16 oz. fourteen are water. When we consider that in an average man of 11 stone or 154 lb. weight, about 111 of these are water, we see what a large supply is needed to repair waste and wear and tear.
• Carrot cake gained its popularity by being served at America's county fairs in the 1960s.
• In the 1960s, Viola Schlicting, from Texas, created the first carrot cake from her German carrot-nut bread recipe.
• The first carrot cake had an orange glaze and used Texas pecans.
• During some religious festivities, people eat carrots cut in rounds, like coins, to symbolize future prosperity.
• The Ancient Greeks called carrots "karoton".
• The saying "dangling a carrot" as a way to get someone to do something, originates from the 1890s, when carrots were dangled in front of donkeys to get them to move.
• In Germany, a hot beverage was made from carrots which had been chopped into small pieces and roasted.
• The ruling planet for cultivated carrot is Mars; for wild carrot it's Mercury
• The biggest carrot on the web? here
   

Homonyms

Carat is the unit of weight for precious stones, equal to 200 milligrams

Caret is a proof readers insertion mark

Carrot is the edible orange rooted vegetable

Karat is one 24th part of otherwise pure gold

Did you know? - One pound of carrots gives a normal man enough energy to raise 64 tons 1 foot in the air?  That same pound can produce 1 ounce and 11 grains of sugar.   A pound also contains 14 ounces of water.

(From:Food collection Bethnal Green Museum – Dr Lankester) 

Carrot Sunday

The Sunday before Michaelmas 29 September is called carrot Sunday in Scotland.

The Eve of St. Michael is the eve of bringing in the carrots, of baking the struan, of killing the lamb, of stealing the horses. The Day of St. Michael is the Day of the early mass, the day of the sacrificial lamb, the day of the oblation struan, the day of the distribution of the lamb, the day of the distribution of the struan, the day of the pilgrimage to the burial-ground of their fathers, the day of the burial-ground service, the day of giving and receiving the carrots with their wishings and acknowledgements, and the day of the oda - the athletics of the men and the racing of the horses. The Night of Michael is the night of the dance and the song, of the merry-making, of the love-making, and of the love-gifts.
Some days before the festival of St. Michael the women and girls go to the fields and plains of the townland to procure carrots. The afternoon of the Sunday immediately preceding St. Michael's day is specially devoted to this purpose, and on this account is known as Domhnach Curran - Carrot Sunday. The carrot was a fertility symbol usually given from a woman to a man.

Riddle: The following number is the only one of its kind. '8,549,176,320' Can you figure out what is so special about it?
Answer: It's the only number that has all the digits arranged in alphabetical order.

Carrot Names around the World

	Austria: Karotte		Netherlands: Peen
	Belgium: Wortel		Norway: Gulrot
	Denmark: Gulerod		Portugal: Cenoura
	Finland: Porkkana		Spain: Zanahoria
	France:  Carotte		Sweden: Morot
	Germany: Mohre		Switzerland: Carotte
	Greece:  Karotto		UK: Carrot
	Italy:Carota		Polish: Marchew
	Chinese: hong		Malay:lobak merah
	Mongolian:luuvan		Thai:Khaerot

Carrot Soapbox

You thought you had seen it all - well what about this Carrot Soap Box made for a Soap Box Derby in Vancouver,BC, CANADA. Many thanks to Judson Beaumont Owner & Designer of Straight Line Designs Inc. Great idea Judson.

Kinetic Carrot Sculpture Cars

Once a simple race down Ferndale's Main Street, the Great Arcata to Ferndale World Championship Kinetic Sculpture Race has grown to become a three-day, all terrain race across 42 miles of roads, mud, water, sand, gravel and more. Held annually on Memorial Day weekend, this local event draws racers and spectators from around the country, and has been televised around the world!

And of course it attracts Carrot Cars! Looks like great fun.

Take a look at the Kinetic Art Museum here

Yin and Yang

Asians traditionally classify foods as yin, yang, or neutral, depending on the energy they impart to the body. Yin, or cooling, foods are said to have a calming effect, whereas yang foods are warming. Neutral foods, such as rice and other whole grains, provide balance. Westerners tend to over indulge in yang foods, such as french fries and meat. The aim is to maintain health through a proper balance of yin and yang.

Yin (cooling) foods include Steamed, poached, or boiled foods. Bok choy, bean sprouts, cucumber, eggplant, tofu, seafood.

Yang (warming) foods include Deep fried, stir-fried, or roasted foods. Meats & poultry. Garlic, ginger, spices, carrots, onion.

Hotel Found in Fuji, Japan	Hot air Balloon

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