Carrots in Farmstead World — crop in the game, and what it is on a real farm.
The carrot is a root vegetable that stores sugar in a long taproot, originally white or purple before farmers bred the familiar orange.
It is a cool-weather crop that keeps well in storage, which is why it has long been part of a winter kitchen.
Farm facts about carrots
The earliest cultivated carrots were not grown for their roots at all - people ate the aromatic leaves and used the seeds. (en.wikipedia.org)
In the 10th century, carrots from West Asia to Europe were mostly purple, and the modern carrot traces its origin to Afghanistan. (en.wikipedia.org)
Orange carrots were created by Dutch growers; their 'Long Orange' variety of the early 18th century became the ancestor of today's carrots. (en.wikipedia.org)
A popular tale says the Dutch bred orange carrots to honor William of Orange, but historians find little evidence - possibly orange simply looked better in soup than purple did. (en.wikipedia.org)
In World War II, Britain spread the story that carrots give you night vision to hide the real reason its pilots fought so well in the dark: radar. (en.wikipedia.org)
Carrots are biennial: they store energy in the taproot in their first year, then spend it all on flowers in their second. (en.wikipedia.org)