“'Scuse me while I kiss the sky.”

If you play professional football, you’d like to win the Super Bowl; if you’re an actress, an Academy award would be nice. But if you’re a vegetable, flower or herb, the title of “All America Selection” winner says you’re the best of the best, garden-wise. This year’s winners include a very unusual carrot called "Purple Haze," named after the song by Rock 'n Roll legend Jimi Hendrix.

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Nona Wolfram Koivala, director of All America Selections (AAS) explains how the Purple Haze carrot was bestowed with such an honor. “We noticed the color right away, a purple carrot, with its classic ‘imperator’ shape, which is about one to two inches wide across the top and then with a long, long, very uniform taper all the way down to a point.

“So it’s the purple color, the desirable shape and the uniformity, but also the flavor as well. It is a very sweet carrot when grown in your garden.”

When you cut through the carrot, you find a surprise inside. “It is purple on the outside and the core is a bright orange, just like any normal carrot. Cooks will find another surprise: The carrot retains its purple color “so long as you don’t cook your carrots to death.” Nona suggests slicing them raw in cole slaw and salads.

“There’s a lot of excitement for what is basically the first purple carrot that’s available to home gardeners.”

But this is not the first time purple carrots have been on the scene. Carrots have a colorful history, first cultivated in Afghanistan in the 7th century. They started with yellow flesh and a purple exterior. They first carrots weren't even cultivated as a food crop. They were grown as medicine and came in an array of colors: Red, black yellow, white, purple, and green. [To learn more about Bugs Bunny's favorite snack, including "how to grow" tips, click here]

Purple Haze carrots are available through mail order seed catalogs and in seed rack displays in retail stores. Look for the red, white and blue “All America Selections winner” emblem. “That means that it has been tested and proven superior to other varieties on the market,”  says Nona.

Conducting tests and determining which varieties earn the AAS designation is the primary function of the nonprofit organization, formed back in 1932.

Before AAS, in the 1920s and 30s, consumer magazine editors knew little about new garden varieties and had few resources to obtain reliable information. Articles as a result might be misleading or incorrect. As explained on the AAS website the garden club movement was in its infancy and needed material. Home, farm seed and florist magazines all were hungry for garden news.

In 1932, W. Ray Hastings, president of the Southern Seedsmen’s Association of Atlanta, Georgia, proposed the idea of All-America Selections as a way for home gardeners to learn which new varieties are truly improved. To do so, he encouraged all seed companies to set up trial grounds, cooperatively test new varieties and agree to develop marketing efforts for new vegetables and flowers.

Mr. Hastings recommended a national network of trial grounds throughout North American climates where flower and vegetable varieties would be grown and assessed by skilled, impartial judges. The seed trials would accept only new, previously unsold varieties.

All-America Selections trials have been conducted every year since 1932 and the organization continues as the oldest, most established international testing organization in North America.

Of course, I had to ask Nona where the name “Purple Haze” originates from. “Actually, the winning plant breeders get to name the varieties. And certainly in this case, the Purple Haze carrot was named after the very famous song by Jimi Hendrix.”

“Oh my goodness,” I blurted. “Have you heard this song by Jimi Hendrix?”

Nona didn’t hesitate a bit. “Oh yes, I’m that old, yes.”

"Purple Haze" was recorded in 1967 by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, released as a single in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The single peaked at number three in the UK but didn’t do as well in the US.

According to many of the websites devoted to keeping the memory of Jimi Hendrix alive, the title is often confused as a drug reference, but Hendrix in interviews said that the song comes from a dream he had, where he was walking under the ocean, surrounded by a purple haze.

The song’s first verse not only contains the words “purple haze” but the now famous expression, “'Scuse me while I kiss the sky.”

Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just don't seem the same
Actin' funny, but I don't know why
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Purple Haze was once featured in a Pepsi TV commercial first broadcast during the 2004 Super Bowl where Jimi Hendrix in his youth is drawn to a Pepsi vending machine and spies an electric guitar in a pawn shop as the opening riff of the song begins to play as the identity of the boy is revealed. By contrast, the boy glances at a Coca-Cola machine that is across the street right by an accordion store and a deliberately bizarre accordion version of the song's riff is played.

A rumor also credits the song to a Native American myth told to Jimi by his Cherokee grandmother. Some say the phrase "purple haze" came from a science fiction novel Hendrix was reading at the time, written by Philip Jose Farmer. Hendrix also explained at one point, that the song is just about love and not about drugs.

I’ll buy that. You can’t help but love a purple carrot.

Right, Jimi?