I have never seen purple carrots. I’ve seen them in magazines but never in Whole Foods or the trendy/well stocked farmer’s markets. Had them occasionally in restaurants but never seen them around for purchase.
What am I doing wrong? I saw this Asian Short Rib recipe and thought “huh, this would look really better with some purple carrots”, then promptly realized I’d never seen any (outside of a restaurant).
Halp?
They are at my farmer’s market. Also white and canary yellow ones. Sometimes. It’s all sometimes – local crops come and go.
The local farmer’s market is my suggestion too. That’s where I found yellowy-orange cauliflower (which was really good, too).
Hmph. Guess I’m just being a grump. Was hoping there was a secret place they kept all the different colored vegetables that I didn’t know about :p. Turns out I’m just not enough of a farmer’s market regular!
Madame Pepperwinkle occasionally has luck with such oddities at Trader Joe’s.
They are fun aren’t they? I especially enjoy the colorful bell peppers for eye-appeal.
This summer I was disappointed to discover that the beautiful purple green beans I bought turned green when they were cooked.
Outside of getting lucky at the farmers market to find the exact type you seek, growing your own is probably the only reliable way.
Many varieties of common vegetables you see with exotic shapes and color are actually heirloom varieties that fell out of commercial usage due to mediocre production, variable size/shape, poor keeping/shipping qualities etc making for less profit margin when grown commercially.
A good source for heirloom seeds is Seed Savers Exchange.
In the same vein, don’t peel your purple carrots. They are usually orange underneath.
I found purple, yellow and green cauliflower at a really upscale Kroger once. They also had horned melons and other weird fruits and veggies. So you might get lucky at a regular ol’ grocery store that’s in a really fancy neighborhood.
I think the key is checking regularly. At this year’s farmer’s market, the bunches of mixed color carrots came and went, so they weren’t available every week. Also, white and yellow beets were divine this year. The carrots were in bunches of white, yellow, purple and orange. The purple ones were huge and I thought they tasted like sweet potatoes.