what color were most carrots before the late 16th century?

Most cultivated carrots before the late 16th century were purple , with white and yellow also common.

Quick Scoop

Before orange carrots became standard in Europe (thanks largely to Dutch breeding in the 16th–17th centuries), people mainly grew so‑called “Eastern” carrots that were deep purple, along with some white and yellow types. Historical and genetic studies trace early domesticated carrots to regions around Afghanistan and the Persian plateau, where purple and yellow roots dominated long before orange existed.

From there, these colorful carrots spread into the Middle East and Europe, where farmers and cooks would have been far more used to purple roots than the bright orange ones seen in supermarkets today. Orange only really took over after breeders in the Low Countries selectively developed more intensely yellow, then orange, “Western” carrots that proved high-yielding and uniform.

So if you time-traveled to a medieval market before the late 1500s and asked for carrots, the stallholder would most likely hand you a bundle of purple roots, not the familiar orange kind.

TL;DR: Before the late 16th century, most carrots people grew and ate were purple, with some white and yellow types; orange carrots only became dominant later in Europe.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.