Re: Are Carrots Period?

[Gene Bonar <grb@fns.com>]

Poster: Gene Bonar <grb@fns.com>

Alfredo el Bufon wrote:
(snip)
> I understand that there is a plant called Queen Anne's Lace that
> often grows wild in fields and roadsides that is in fact wild
> carrot, with a root ...

Yes you are right but there is more...

Daucus carrota, Queen Anne's Lace is not a native of North America.  The
plant that grows in ditches and roadsides over most of the temperate
sections of North America comes originally in the Fertile Crescent and
the Balkans.  The ancient Greeks not only ate the root but collected the
petals as an aphrodisiac.  Later several "varieties" were developed and
bought over to North America and were raised in the their gardens.  The
plant broke out of the gardens and the less stable varieties reverted
back to their wild roots (pun intended).  

The root of Daucus carrota is about 2-3" long white and eatable.  It has
a mild carrot flavor but, the flavor can vary a great deal and yes they
can be tough and bitter.  However, the main problem most people have
with the root is not potential bitterness but the fact that it take so
many to make a meal.

Queen Anne's lace is an umbel which is to say that it has a flower head
which is really a round flat disk many of many blossoms.  Each "floret"
has three small white petals except for the center most which has three
purple petals.  It's this center purple floret that identifies QAL from
other white umbels.  The Greeks would collect these purple petals to
produce an oil that they thought was lust-inducing.  I have no science
as to how successful they were at producing the effect they wanted.  The
next time you have a chance to see QAL check out the center floret it
kinda neat.  You only get 3 just 3 very tiny petals per flower head.  It
would have taken the Greeks hundreds maybe thousands of plants just to
get 1 or 2 drops of oil.

I dont happen to have my sources handy but I can supply them if
necessary.


-- 
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Eoghan mac Ailpein, Proto-Highlander Mid-800            
Elvegast, Windmaster's Hill, Atlantia       
mka  Gene Bonar  grb@fns.com  919 772 1112 
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