The Carrots in Literature

Main sections:Carrot Quotations -   Food Quotes - Carrot Poetry -  Literary References - Childrens Books

Carrots have been mentioned in many literary works, and here are several located by the World Carrot Museum. 

If you know of more please let us know. Some of the carroty books listed in Archive.org

Some photos of Carrot Books in the Museum collection here.

Grimms Fairy Tale - The Carrot King here (pdf).

Quotations - Carrot

Shakespeare - "Remember, William," says Sir Hugh Evans in the Merry Wives of Windsor, 'Focative is Caret,' 'and that' replies Mrs. Quickly, 'is a good root."

"The man in the moon drinks claret, But he is a dull Jack-a-dandy; Would he know a sheep's head from a Carrot He should learn to drink cider and brandy." Song of Mad Tom in Midsummer Night's Dream.

1633 - Chester Mystery Plays - this rather odd performance was apparently included in a "masque" performed in 1633

(reference Chambers' "Book of Days" 1869 mentions carrots while describing the Chester Mystery Plays  - listed under May 15th)

"The fift a Physition, on his head a Hat with a bunch of Carrots, a Capon perched upon his fist." is from "The Trivmph of Peace. A Masque, presented by the Foure Honourable Houses, or Innes of Court. Before the King and Queenes Majesties, in the Banquetting-house at White Hall, February the third, 1633. Invented and written, By James Shirley, of Grayes Inne" who was one of the leading playwrights in the decade before the closing of the theatres by Parliament in 1642. (Text is here: http://jacklynch.net/Texts/triumph.html) in which we find:

This grave man, some yeares past was a Phisition,

A Galenist, and parcell Paracelsus,

Thriu'd by diseases, but quite lost his practice,

To study a new way to fatten Poultry

With scrapings of a Carrot, a great benefit

To th'Commonwealth.

Printed by Iohn Norton, for William Cooke [etc.] 1633 [i.e. 1634]

James Shirley, (born September 1596, London, Eng.—buried Oct. 29, 1666, London), English poet and dramatist, one of the leading playwrights in the decade before the closing of the theatres by Parliament in 1642. with scenery by Inigo Jones and music by William Lawes. (william Lawes was killed in Chester during the Civil War)

These pageants or triumphs have, like their predecessors, the mysteries, their relation to the English drama; not only were they composed for the purpose of flattering and complimenting their princes, but a moral end was constantly kept in view: virtue was applauded, while vice was set forth in its most revolting and unpleasing colours; and the altercations between these two leading personages often afforded the populace the highest amusement.

The opportunity was also seized upon of presenting to royal ears some of the political abuses of the day; as in one offered by the Inns of Court to Charles the First, where ridicule was thrown upon the vexatious law of patents: a fellow appearing with a bunch of carrots on his head, and a capon on his fist, and asking for a patent of monopoly as the first inventor of the art of feeding capons with carrots, and that none but himself should have privilege of the said invention for fourteen years; whilst another came mounted on a little horse with an immense bit in his mouth, and the request that none should be allowed to ride unless they purchased his bits.

(Reference http://chester.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Chamber%27s_Book_of_days#Content)

Edward Lear - (English artist, writer; known for his 'literary nonsense' & limericks (1812-1888) - "There was an Old Person in gray, Whose feelings were tinged with dismay; She purchased two parrots, and fed them with carrots, Which pleased that Old Person in gray."

Mae West "I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond,"

Fran Lebowitz in Metropolitan Life (1978) "Large, naked, raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who live in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter."

Will Rogers (1879-1935) "Some guy invented Vitamin A out of a carrot. I'll bet he can't invent a good meal out of one."

Will Rogers (again) "An onion can make people cry but there has never been a vegetable to make people laugh"

Trollope - (From Brachester Towers)    "HOW TO MAKE TEETHING CORALS - Take his coral my dear,' she said, and rub it well with carrot juice. Rub it till the juice dries on it and then give it him to play with' . . . 'Not got a coral? how can you expect that he should cut his teeth?"

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904), Russian author, playwright. "You ask What is life? That is the same as asking, What is a carrot; A carrot is a carrot and we know nothing more. Letter to his wife, Olga Knipper Chekhov (April 20, 1904)

J.B. Priestley (1894-1984) “But some of us are beginning to pull well away, in our irritation, from...the exquisite tasters, the vintage snobs, the three-star Michelin gourmets. There is, we feel, a decent area somewhere between boiled carrots and Beluga caviare, sour plonk and Chateau Lafitte, where we can take care of our gullets and bellies without worshipping them.”

John Robinson Jeffers (1187-1962) "Pleasure is the carrot dangled to lead the ass to market; or the precipice."

Pliny the Elder, a Roman Historian and scientist said:"There is one kind of wild pastinaca which grows spontaneously; by the Greeks it is known as staphylinos. Another kind is grown either from the root transplanted or else from seed, the ground being dug to a very considerable depth for the purpose. It begins to be fit for eating at the end of the year, but it is still better at the end of two; even then, however, it preserves its strong pungent flavour, which it is found impossible to get rid of." - It was the Carrot.

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) " Yes, a bunch of carrots, observed directly, painted simply in the personal way one sees it, worth more than the Ecole’s everlasting slices of buttered bread, that tobacco-juice painting, slavishly done by the book?  The day is coming when a single original carrot will give birth to a revolution."

Nicholas Culpeper (1653) said of carrots that "Wild carrots belong to Mercury, and expel wind and remove stitches in the side, promote the flow of urine and women's courses, and break and expel the stone; the seed has the same effect and is good for dropsy, and those whose bowels are swollen with wind: It cures colic, stone, and rising of the mother; being taken in wine or boiled in wine and taken, it helpeth conception. The leaves being applied with honey to running sores or ulcers cleanse them; I suppose the seeds of them perform this better than the roots: and though Galen recommended garden carrots highly to expel wind, yet they breed it first, and we may thank nature for expelling it, not they; for the seeds of them expel wind and so mend what the root marreth."

Greek Physician Pedanius Dioscorides (c. 40-c. 90) wrote "Ye root ye thickness of a finger, a span long, sweet-smelling, edible being sodden [boiled]. Of this ye seed being drank...and it is good for ye [painful discharge of urine] in potions, and for ye bitings and strokes of venomous beasts; they say also, that they which take it before hand shall take no wrong of wilde beasts. It co-operates also to conception, and it also being [diuretic], both provoketh [poison], and being applied; but the leaves being beaten small with honey, and laid on, doth cleanse rapidly spreading destructive ulceration of soft tissues."

Evans and Mistress Quickly in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor (IV:1). -

"Remember, William," says Sir Hugh Evans, "Focative is Caret," "and that" replies Mrs. Quickly, "is a good root."

Shakespeare - Midsummer Nights Dream: 

"The man in the moon drinks claret,
But he is a dull Jack-a-dandy;
Would he know a sheep's head from a Carrot
He should learn to drink cider and brandy."
Song of Mad Tom in _Midsummer Night's Dream.

Richard Gardiner in Profitable Instructions for the Manuring, Sowing and Planting of Kitchen Gardens (1599) "Sowe Carrets in your Gardens, and humbly praise God for them, as for a singular and great blessing."

Irena Chalmers in "The Great Food Almanac". Eating a carrot a day is "like signing a life insurance policy"

The King’s Bride—by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), the German Edgar Allan Poe—tells in of a girl, Anne von Zabeltau, who worked in a vegetable garden. A wicked gnome, Daucus Carota the First, was the king of all the vegetables. Upon seeing the beautiful maiden, he was possessed by desire for her and proceeded to abduct her into his musky underworld realm of roots and worms. But then one day the carrot king perceived the wailing of his subjects—the carrots, celeriacs, and turnips—as they were being chopped up and cast into a boiling pot. Trying to save them, the gnome himself fell into the soup kettle and perished. Only then could the maiden escape the dark underworld.

Old Yiddish saying "Only in dreams are carrots as big as bears."

Irish Proverb  "Never bolt your door with a boiled carrot."

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."

Old proverb How do you lead a horse to water? With lots of carrots.

John Stolarczyk (1950-?) "Remember a carrot is for life not just for Christmas"; "Gardeners never die then simply throw in the trowel"; "They are not all locked up yet".

Shel Silverstein What did the carrot say to the wheat? Lettuce rest, I'm feeling beet.

Seen in a health food store: "Shoplifters will be beaten over the head with an organic carrot."

One legend tells of a carrot seed that fell out of a seed merchant’s bag when he was crossing the Rhine. The seed grew into a carrot so gigantic the farmer who found it was able to feed two oxen all winter with it. In turn, the oxen’s horns grew to be so big that when they were blown (cattle horns are still used as horns today) the sound traveled from St. Martin’s Day (November 11) until St. George’s Day (April 23).

Carrot-pomade, with twenty-six illustrations. By Augustus Hoppin,1864 (image right) More detail here.

Carrot-pomade describes the alchemy that transforms carrots into a miraculous ointment which stimulates and regenerates hair growth: “Hair ten carats fine!” boasts the title page. In the October release of American Pamphlets, 1820-1922: From the New-York Historical Society are three whimsical and elaborately illustrated pamphlets unique to this collection. The first two are by illustrator Augustus Hoppin (1828-1896), a widely published American caricaturist who appears to have been largely obscured in the mist of history.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

In 1868 Charles Dickens wrote in his weekly literary magazine "All Year Round" -

French cooks in their versatile invention and restless desire to please and delight give strange and striking names to their new dishes. They have “The Soup of the Good Woman” and above all, “The Potage a la Jambe du Bois (The Soup of the Wooden Leg).” But the wooden leg is an after ingredient.

Like most receipts of the first class, this one is horribly expensive; but, like most other expensive recipes, it is just as good made more economically. Take a wooden leg—no, that is afterwards. Procure a shin of beef and put it in a pot, with three dozen carrots, a dozen onions, two dozen pieces of celery, twelve turnips, a fowl, and two partridges. It must simmer six hours. Then get two pounds of fillet of veal: stew it, and pour the soup over the meat. Add more celery; then mix bread and eventually serve up the soup with the shin bone (the real wooden leg) emerging like the bowsprit of a wreck from the sea of vegetables.

Cries of Old London - Old ballad or early but uncertain date (1750’s).

" Here's green coleworts and brocoli

Come buy my radishes

Here's fine savorys and ripe hautboys

Come buy my young green hastings ho ! *

Come buy my beans right Windsor beans

Two pence a bunch young carrots ho !

Here's fine nosegays ripe strawberries

With ready pickled salad also

Here's collyflowers and asparagus

New prunes twopence a pound

Let none despise the merry merry cries Of Famous London Town.

Grimm’s Fairy Tale No. 146 The Carrot King

Once there lived two brothers, both serving as soldiers. One brother was rich, the other poor. The poor one, seeking to alleviate his dire need, took off his soldier’s uniform and became a farmer. Now he spent his time digging, hoeing and hacking his little acre and sowed a row of carrots. The seed sprouted and a carrot soon grew that was so large and strong and noticeably thicker than the others. In fact, it would not stop growing. One could even say it was the Crown Prince or Ruler of all Carrots because never again has there been such a carrot (nor, I suspect, shall there ever be another one like it). Finally it was so big that it filled up an entire wagon and two oxen were required to pull it. The farmer did not know what to do with the thing, and he wondered whether the carrot was his fortune or misfortune. Finally he thought to himself “If you sell it, what great reward will you fetch? And the smaller carrots are just as good for eating. It is best that you present it to the king and honor him with the gift.”

So he loaded the carrot on his wagon, hitched up two oxen and drove to court to present the carrot to the king. “What kind of strange thing have you brought?” the king asked. “I have seen many odd things in my day, but never such a monster. From what type of seed could this have grown? Or perhaps, the vegetable has only grown this way for you because you are a child of fortune.”

“Oh no,” the farmer replied. “I am no fortune’s child. I am a poor soldier who could no longer feed himself. So I hung my soldier’s uniform on a nail and now tend the soil. I have a brother who is rich, whom you certainly know. But I have nothing and have been forgotten by the world.”

The king felt compassion for him and said “You shall overcome your poverty and will receive presents from me so that you shall be the equal of your rich brother.”

The king gave him enormous amounts of gold, farmland, fields and cattle and made him stone-rich, so that the riches of his brother did not compare. When his brother heard what had been accomplished with a single carrot, he was overcome with jealously and plotted how he, too, could secure such fortune for himself. But he wanted to do it in a much smarter way so he took gold and horses and brought them to the king. He thought the king would give him much greater riches in return, because his brother had received so much for a single carrot. The king received the brother’s gift and said, he did not know what to give him in return that could be rarer or better than the large carrot. So the rich brother had to accept his brother’s carrot as present from the king. He put it in his wagon and drove home. At home he did not know on whom he could take out his rage and anger until finally an evil thought came to him. He decided to kill his brother and so he hired murderers, who were instructed to lay in waiting. He now went to his brother and said “Dear brother, I know a secret treasure. Let us go out together, unearth it and share it.”

The brother let himself be convinced and innocently went along. But when they were walking, the murderers fell upon him, tied him up and wanted to hang him on a tree. They were just about to carry out the evil deed when the sound of song and the beating of hooves could be heard in the distance. Such a terror seized them, that in their haste they pushed their prisoner into a sack, hung it on a tree and took flight. But the prisoner worked nimbly with his fingers until there was a hole in the sack, through which he could stick his head. But who should be the next one to come down the path but a wandering student, a young fellow who rode through the forest singing loudly. When the one hanging in the sack noticed that someone was passing below he called out “Greetings to you in this fine hour.”

The student looked all around and did not know from where the voice came. Finally he said “Who is calling me?” From the treetop the prisoner now called “Raise your eyes. I am sitting up here in the sack of wisdom. In only a short amount of time I have learned many things, among them that all learning is as elusive as the wind. Soon I will have mastered everything, will come down and be wiser than all humankind. I understand the stars and can read the signs of the heavens, can decipher the blowing of the winds, the sand in the sea, know all manner of healing sickness, recognize the powers of herbs, birds and stones. If you sat here in my place, you too would soon understand the wonder that flows out of my sack of wisdom.”

When the student heard all this he was amazed and said “Blessed be the hour when I found you. Couldn’t I too sit a while in the sack?” From above the prisoner replied as if he did not relish the idea. “I will let you sit here for a very short time in return for a reward and good words. But you must wait another hour; I still have to learn a bit more.”

When the student had waited a bit, he began to be restless. The time seemed too long and he begged immediate entry to the sack; his thirst for wisdom was far too great to wait any longer. The prisoner in the sack pretended he had finally given in and said “So that I can emerge from this cocoon of wisdom, you must lower the sack by that rope tied to the tree. Then you can crawl inside.”

The student lowered the sack, opened it and freed the man inside. Then he called out eagerly “Now pull me up into the tree quickly!” He wanted to walk into the sack standing upright. “Stop!” cried out the other. “That won’t do at all!” He grabbed him by the head and pushed him in backwards, tied the opening around his head and pulled the disciple of wisdom up into the tree, where he swayed back and forth in the air. “How do you fare up there my dear fellow? See, don’t you already feel wisdom dawning with experience? Now sit quietly until you become much smarter than you already are.”

And so he mounted the student’s horse, rode away and after an hour sent out someone to let the fellow out of the tree.

La Rochefoucauld (1665) "To eat is a necessity, but to e