Heirloom Tomatoes, the Answer to Genetically Modified??

[Guest guest]

Heirloom Tomatoes, the Answer to Genetically Modified?? (Once upon a time, all

seed was " heirloom)

 

http://www.heirlooms.org/tomato.html

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By Bill Best (contact the author)

Fall 1998

Appalachian Heritage

(reprinted with permission)

 

Around the middle of September this year, I went to North Carolina to visit with

a first cousin I hadn't seen in forty-four years who was coming in from Idaho

where he has lived since his retirement from the Air Force. We met at a

convenient place for both of us--the farmers' market in Asheville.

Despite our long time apart, we instantly recognized each other and set about

reliving times past on the Liner Creek part of the UpperCrabtree community in

Haywood County, North Carolina, in the forties and fifties.

First we discussed our Grandmother Sanford, who, we agreed, was a cook and

gardener beyond compare. She was also an early riser, getting up early to go out

to awaken the roosters so that they might crow to awaken everyone else.

Standing amidst the colorful and aromatic displays of fruits, vegetables, and

canned and dried foods, we then talked about the gardening we had grown up with

and how it had influenced our eating and work habits. Then, when it came time

for him and his wife to leave to go visit other relatives, he informed me that

they were moving back to North Carolina from Idaho and that his goal, at age

seventy-one, was to become a vendor at the farmers' market to continue his

life-long love of working with vegetables.

 

Our talk brought back to me the dependence we had on one another growing up and

the necessity of having good gardens to put food on the table. For us, as

families whose only livelihood was subsistence farming supplemented by a little

hunting, trapping, and ginseng digging, gardening was not merely a hobby. Good

gardens ensured eating well until the next ones started yielding the following

year. Our conversation also brought back to me some of my personal experiences

as a child and the role vegetables played for me. Mother always took me, as the

oldest child, with her to work the gardens and to pick wild nuts and berries

which we also depended on. I became expert at picking cherries and climbed with

her all over the mountains to pick the finest wild blackberries. However, my

personal favorite work with fruits and vegetables was with tomatoes. I took

special care with them.'

 

In addition to having tomatoes at least two meals daily during the summer, when

school started in the fall, I took tomato sandwiches to school until those I had

stored away finally gave out and I then started eating the lunches prepared by

the cooks at school. But I was so fond of tomato sandwiches (with mayonnaise)

that I took them for my lunch even if no light bread was available and I had to

take them on biscuits instead.

 

In fact, after the last tomatoes were gone, for about two weeks I took

mayonnaise sandwiches instead and imagined myself eating tomato sandwiches. My

most memorable year as a child was when we didn't have a killing frost until

after Thanksgiving and I dug ripe tomatoes from a freshly fallen snow for

Thanksgiving dinner. Such was, and continues to be, my love of tomatoes.

 

I have gardened almost all of my life since Grandpa Best began teaching me the

differences between young sweet potato and cocklebur plants when I was two years

old. Beans and tomatoes have always been my favorite vegetables, but having paid

tribute to beans in this magazine (Winter 1998) I turn now to tomatoes.

 

From my earliest memory we grew both heirloom and commercial (seed catalogue)

tomatoes. Of course, we didn't call them heirlooms.

 

They were just tomatoes of different colors and stripes and I never gave the

varieties a second thought. I liked all of them and thought I was eating the

best food available. (Science may prove me right, since tomatoes have been shown

not to have many negatives and to have many positives with respect to health.)

 

When I started my own serious gardens in the early sixties, I simply went with

the seeds and plants available for purchase at the local farm stores.

 

It didn't occur to me that they might be considerably different from most of

what I had grown up with and " genetically altered " for purposes other than

making them more nutritious and tastier.

 

My first discovery was that tomatoes were getting tougher and tougher and had a

lot less taste than those of my youth.

 

I thought that I wasn't so old that my taste buds were already giving out on me

and discovered that other acquaintances were also having trouble with modern

tomatoes.

 

They, too, thought that something had happened to tomatoes that rendered them

less tasty.

 

Then I had an experience that began to alleviate my naivete'. I had a surplus

one summer in the early sixties, owing to my habit of always planting about ten

times what my family needed, and contacted a grocery company about selling my

own supply. I took a sample to the company representative in Lexington,

Kentucky, and he was quite pleased. He said I had a very good looking tomato and

one he would like to sell.

 

So my young children, wife, and I picked the first ripe clusters of tomatoes,

took photos of them because they looked so good, and then hauled them to

Lexington to the company shipping warehouse. Once there, I began to lose the

previously mentioned naivete'.

 

The company representative rejected them angrily. He said they were ripe and he

didn't want ripe tomatoes. He then went on to say that he wanted them green and

that he would " gas " them to ripen them whenever he needed them. He seemed to

think I was stupid because I wasn't aware that this was the standard way of

marketing tomatoes in grocery stores.

 

But this was an astounding revelation to me and put many missing pieces into the

puzzle about why tomatoes were so tough and had lost their taste.

 

When our children were a little older, we started growing tomatoes for

Cumberland Farm Products, a cooperative in Monticello, Kentucky, operated by

Larry Snell, a Berea graduate who had been a monitor for my wife, the dormitory

director of Blue Ridge Hall, while a student. For him we grew the Campbell 1327

tomato, which had been bred by the Campbell Soup Company for processing.

 

It had a wonderful acid taste and was very popular with consumers. We sold them

at the " breaker " stage, which is when the star first appears on the blossom end

of the tomato. A tomato at this breaker stage is already ripe on the inside and

needs only a few days to ripen completely and is promoted commercially as " vine "

ripe.

 

Gradually, however, the Campbell 1327, because of the characteristics which made

it very tasty, became less acceptable to produce managers and the co-op started

going to harder and harder tomatoes, which had the magic ingredient for

marketing to the major chains-- " shelf life " .

 

But before I stopped growing the 1327 variety, I had a considerable surplus of

ripe tomatoes and decided to take them to Austin, Indiana, to a canning factory.

I called ahead and was told they would pay me $57.00 per ton for my tomatoes,

and since I would have several tons, I decided it would be worth the experience.

So I hired a large truck and driver and several individuals to help pick the

load.

 

After we had completed picking, we arrived several hours later at the plant and

were again graded for quality. To my surprise, since these were the poorest

quality tomatoes I had had all summer, I received a very high quality grade and

was told that my grade was the highest ever given at that particular plant or by

that grader. When I observed the other tomatoes being brought in I understood

why my grade had been so high. Most had large rotten spots in them which were

washed out by a high pressure hose while the tomatoes went down the assembly

line and were literally beaten into a pulp by the high pressure water stream.

The experience changed my attitude forever about canned tomatoes and ketchup and

made me appreciate all the more what I was doing.

 

I was not very happy about growing the harder tomatoes, but something else

happened that moved us out of growing tomatoes for the co-op at all. On July 4,

1984, we had a devastating hailstorm and flood that made our crop unmarketable

commercially through USDA channels. I then had to more aggressively market the

tomatoes at the Berea and Lexington farmers' markets and discovered that

tomatoes that were totally unacceptable to a USDA grader were in high demand by

the public.

 

We were charter members of both the Lexington farmers' market (1972) and the

Berea market (1973), and focused primarily on selling heirloom tomatoes at both

places since most customers at both places had had enough of hard tomatoes.

 

In fact, many people refused to buy a round tomato because they thought it would

be of inferior quality like those in the grocery stores and they had come to

associate roundness with bad tastes and textures.

 

Over the years shoppers who were buying our tomatoes at the Lexington market

started suggesting to chefs at restaurants they patronized that they should

check into our types of tomatoes.

 

Gradually they did so which then led us more completely back to the tomatoes I

had grown up with. When chefs began to experiment with our tomatoes in their

dishes, their customers started demanding the tomatoes we were growing and chefs

started getting to the markets early to get their pick of our offerings.

 

To make a long story short and to attest to the growing popularity of heirloom

tomatoes, we currently sell to at least thirty restaurants, seventeen in

Cincinnati and over a dozen in Lexington and Berea. The tomatoes going to

Cincinnati are marketed through a broker who comes to the Lexington market to

pick them up for the chefs in his area. He also shows up early to get the pick

of the crop and has even come to our fields to pick them himself if we are

unable to meet him in Lexington.

 

Thus with tomatoes I underwent a transformation similar to what I underwent with

beans but did not go wholly back to growing heirlooms. Among the 168 varieties I

grew this summer, I still produced some commercial tomatoes but am careful about

those I choose to grow and will discontinue growing those which do not have good

flavor and texture.

 

Not to my surprise, at least not anymore, I have noticed that those which win

the national prizes as " All American " tomatoes are not necessarily the best or

even good at all.

 

What wins prizes is having the right political connections, with tomatoes just

as much as in political races.

 

Types and Varieties:

 

Without going into a long detailed discussion about the technical aspects of

tomato types, I will detail some of the major differences among various types

and varieties of tomatoes.

 

Most people think that there are only two types of tomatoes, red and yellow. In

fact, a large proportion of people in the United States have only had

experiences with red tomatoes and never saw a yellow tomato until they started

going to farmers' markets, either in Berea or in Lexington or elsewhere.

However, there are a multitude of colors of tomatoes and a vast array of

flavors.

 

It is my understanding that scientists have identified at least thirty flavor

components present in tomatoes to a greater or lesser degree. Commercial

tomatoes, usually picked green and ripened with ethylene gas days or weeks

later, have very little flavor at all and have come to be used in dishes only to

add color.

 

Most people know they have no taste and expect none. However, vine-ripened

tomatoes have a multitude of flavors, ranging from very acid to very sweet with

many degrees in between.

 

All tomatoes have acid flavorings but some have a higher level of sugars than do

others. As a rule, red tomatoes are more acid than others, while yellow tomatoes

have the highest proportions of sugars. Pink, purple, black, white, brown,

orange, and green (when ripe) have varying acid to sugar balances, with the

yellow German varieties (yellow with red stripes) being the sweetest of all and

in high demand among those who have experienced eating them.

 

We have noticed that an increasingly larger percentage of farmers' market

customers are purchasing the blacks, browns, purples, whites, striped, green

(when ripe), oranges, and yellows. These tomatoes have a wide range of flavors

and textures.

 

Sizes: Tomatoes vary in size from the tiny South American currant (both red and

yellow) tomatoes where several will fit into a teaspoon to the Delicious

variety, which holds many state records for size and the world record as well.

It commonly weighs over three pounds and has come close to eight pounds which is

the world record. Without any effort out of the ordinary, I have personally

grown many over four pounds and one five-pounder.

 

Colors: As mentioned earlier, many people who have had limited experience with

tomatoes think that tomatoes only come in one color-red. Others will allow that

there are two colors-red and yellow. To the surprise of many, if not most

people, tomatoes come in a multitude of colors with red being the most common in

this country. Other colors are pink, brown, black, orange, purple, white, green

(even when ripe), and various striped varieties with the red-striped Yellow

German variety being the most common striped tomato. And all of the above colors

come in varying hues.

 

Shapes: Most people think that tomatoes arrived on the earth in the familiar

round shape. They are then surprised to discover that they are oblong, flat with

ribs, heart shaped (the oxheart types from many countries), ruffled, pepper like

(and hollow just like peppers), and many combinations of shapes. While most

plant breeders have tried to make them rounder and rounder and more uniform in

shape, other breeders have tried to make them square so that they will fit into

boxes more easily. Suffice to say, most large heirloom varieties do not come in

uniform shapes and sizes, which is one of the reasons they do not ship well.

 

Textures: As tomatoes sold commercially have had to travel greater and greater

distances, and with most now being grown in Mexico, California, and Florida,

plant breeders have bred them to be harder and harder. Commercial varieties,

most of which are picked green, then transported, then left in storage for days

or weeks, and finally gassed to color them, are the hardest of all. On the other

hand, the green (when ripe), black, brown, purple, and white varieties are the

softest of all and will not tolerate being shipped when ripe. With them it is

best to leave them on a flat surface stacked only one level high and then eat

them within three days of picking. People who care the most about tomato flavor

tend to like the softer varieties and know just when to serve them, based more

on how they feel to the touch rather than how they look to the eye.

 

Flavors: A lot of customers want a tomato that " bites them back when they bite

it " -or, in other words, a very acid tomato. Most are disappointed with

commercial varieties because their flavor is so bland, but that is the

characteristic of any tomato picked green and then later gassed for ripening.

Their flavors never develop.

 

All tomatoes ripened on the vine have a substantial amount of acid, but they

vary greatly in the proportion of sugars. As a general rule, red tomatoes are

the most acid of the various colors while yellows are the most sweet. The pinks,

blacks, browns, purples, greens, whites and striped all have varying acid/ sugar

combinations with the Yellow German tomatoes (yellow with red stripes) being the

most sweet of all I know about. Flavor scientists have isolated over thirty

flavor components of tomatoes and there are probably many more.

 

Also it is not safe to say that one variety is necessarily more acid than

another variety. The flavors change as the season progresses from early summer

to fall with most varieties becoming more acid as the season progresses. I am

not sure of all the reasons this is so, but it is probably a combination of

shorter days, cooler nights, and the general loss of foliage to disease and

weathering as the season progresses. A diminished amount of total leaf surface

means less space for the production of sugars. At any rate, those who wish to

can tomatoes and have a high acid content in the finished product would be wise

to can from about the middle of August onward.

 

Diseases and Environmental Disorders:

 

Tomatoes are subject to a host of diseases, including fungal blights, wilts, and

bacterial infections, especially during cool rainy weather. Additionally, they

are subject to disorders such as blossom end rot caused by too much rain or too

little rain, both of which interfere with proper calcium metabolism and produce

a leathery black scar on the blossom end of the tomato. Another metabolic

disorder is gray wall, caused by too much water at certain times during fruit

development and causes the cells in the walls of the tomato to break down. This

darkens the walls of the fruit and rot soon sets in.

 

The worst of all diseases is late blight, wh

ich is caused by the same organism that caused the potato famines in Ireland,

which killed millions and sent millions more to other countries. It can

devastate plants within two or three days to a week; control measures need to be

applied immediately when the disease is first noticed. A better way to approach

late blight is to have a good prevention program going at all times, and there

are several safe sprays which can control it along with early blight as well. I

have had late blight only once and do not wish ever to have it again.

 

While the seed companies claim to have included disease resistance in their

breeding programs and we are all familiar with the letters after the names of

varieties in their advertisements indicating resistance to various diseases,

 

I have found the heirlooms, as a rule, to be more resistant to diseases than the

hybrids. This is probably why they have lasted long enough to become heirlooms.

 

People tend not to hold on to varieties that are plagued by disease while, at

the same time, saving their seeds from healthy plants.

 

Dealing with these diseases and disorders is a long article in itself, but I

will say that some excellent publications offer suggestions about disease

control and the prevention of blossom end rot and gray wall. Extension agents in

most counties will have them on hand, usually for free.

 

Varieties: I have personally grown over three hundred varieties over the past

thirty-five years and usually grow over 150 per year now. I can do this easily

enough because I grow almost all of my own transplants from seed. (I usually

order a few hundred from commercial growers in case I lose my first setting to a

late frost.)

 

Rather than list all of the tomatoes I have grown in their respective

categories, I will offer some commentary about groups of varieties and single

out special varieties and types that have unique characteristics:

 

For eating, my personal favorites are the pink varieties, which tend to have a

good balance of acids and sugars and pleasant textures. Of the pinks, I then

tend to prefer the oxheart types which are oblong and heart shaped. Of the

oxhearts, my favorite is the Anna Russian which is said to have come from Russia

to a lady in Oregon and then spread to other states from there. I do know that

the Russian immigrants now living in Lexington recognize them readily and buy

them whenever I have them.

 

 

As indicated earlier, the Yellow German varieties, variously known as Yellow

German, Pineapple, Big Rainbow, Georgia Streak, Hillbilly, Kentucky Beefsteak,

and others are the sweetest of the large varieties and are becoming increasingly

popular. These are the large yellow tomatoes with the red stripes which become

more pronounced at the tomato ripens. We tend to double our production each year

and are nowhere near to being able to supply demand as it seems to increase

faster than we are able to increase our supply The Yellow German is supposed to

be a Mennonite and Amish heirloom, and I suspect that the other names by which

it is known are simply local variations and, in some cases, marketing strategies

by the various companies that now supply heirlooms to an increasingly larger

number of customers.

 

Of these strains of the Yellow German variety, I prefer one I got from

Rockcastle County, Kentucky, which is locally known as the Willard Wynn variety,

after the man who perfected the strain. This particular strain is never

completely round and comes in a pleasing variety of shapes and rarely has cat

faces.

 

 

The red varieties are best known to people in the United States and are the

varieties most worked with by plant breeders. (Other than Lemon Boy and Golden

Boy, there are no large yellow tomato hybrids that I know about.) Red tomatoes

range in size from tiny red currants where it takes many to make an ounce, to

the Delicious mentioned earlier, which can weigh many pounds.

 

In addition to all of the heirloom red varieties, we also grow some of the

hybrids first to be developed such as Big Boy and Better Boy and more recently

developed large hybrids such as Goliath and Park's Whopper. Most of the red

hybrids bred for gardeners are quite tasty with good texture; the most recent

ones such as Whopper and Goliath are particularly appealing. The Harris Seed

Company's Ramapo is also an outstanding tomato requested by many farmers' market

customers, but it has been phased out by the company, because of low overall

demand.

 

When I heard it was to be no more, I called the company and begged for their

remaining packets and was sent several with thirty seeds each, which will last

me for a few more years.

 

Some mention also needs to be made of the varieties constantly being developed

by the major seed companies. The primary considerations for most new varieties

are USDA grade percentage and shelf life. There are so many new ones that most

do not yet have a name and exist only by numbers. Few will make the grade

commercially and will disappear. Most are determinate varieties to be picked

green and later gassed for coloration and have little or no flavor.

 

However, there is at least one notable exception to an otherwise dismal rule.

The tomatoes developed by Dr. Randy Gardner at the Fletcher Experiment Station

in Fletcher, North Carolina, are held in high regard both by commercial growers

and by gardeners. They are called by the " Mountain Series " and have names like

Mountain Pride, Mountain Gold, Mountain Delight, Mountain Fresh, Mountain

Spring, Mountain Supreme, and Mountain Belie. Mountain Pride and Mountain Fresh,

in particular, are beautiful tomatoes which also have an excellent flavor.

 

However, despite the popularity of his tomatoes, Dr. Gardner's varieties have

failed to win the national awards. I believe this is primarily because he is a

modest man working in a mountain county in a Southern state. Yet his seeds are

sold by virtually all of the major seed companies.

 

An Heirloom Paradox

 

For many years I have been growing some outstanding heirloom tomatoes credited

to the Amish and Mennonites. They include what we call the German yellows and

pinks and several oxheart and orange types.

 

Since many communities of both groups have moved to Kentucky during the past

twenty years or so, I have also started buying many of my supplies from

Mennonite merchants in Casey County who supply almost anything needed to grow

tomatoes and other vegetable crops. They have also been responsible for the

development of an outstanding plant setter, which I also bought from them.

 

Just at the time when I am having the most success in growing and marketing the

Amish and Mennonite heirlooms, I have discovered that both groups are giving up

on their own heirlooms and have started growing the most modern hard and

tasteless types of tomatoes.

 

Ironically enough, because they are forbidden by their religions to utilize

certain forms of modern transportation and farm machinery, they can't grow their

own tomatoes for shipping and must grow commercial tomatoes in order to have

markets and be able to sustain an otherwise simple way of life.

Having noted this paradox for a number of years, I recently asked the wife of a

Mennonite businessman how they dealt with what I thought might be a theological

sticking point.

 

She then made this statement: " Our theology is what our leaders say it is on a

given day. " with a slight shrug, she indicated that she understood what I meant

but also indicated that they know they must make an accommodation to marketing

reality.

 

Because of their dispersal into rural states such as Kentucky, they no longer

live close to their markets and must ship their produce by independent truckers

long distances to find markets.

 

I am more than happy to help sustain their heirlooms until the day comes when

they will again be able to grow on their own terms.

The Future of Heirlooms

 

For many of the reasons delineated in this essay and others too numerous to

discuss, I believe heirloom tomatoes and other heirloom vegetables and fruits

will have an increasingly bright future.

 

Many people are becoming tired of the same old dreary vegetables and fruits with

the shiny uniform look and the cardboard taste and are looking for flavor and

quality. Agriculture schools are already showing some signs of paying attention

to the needs and desires of consumers, and consumer demand, once it becomes

organized, can change the way America grows and eats.

 

Also, plant scientists and geneticists are quite concerned about the decline of

plant species and varieties and are giving all the encouragement they can muster

to those of us who are willing to assist in maintaining the diversity of

varieties and species.

_________________

 

Post subject: What Is an Heirloom Tomato?

 

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What Is an Heirloom Tomato?

http://www.tomatofest.com/heirloom_tomato.html

 

Heirloom- An heirloom is generally considered to be a variety that has been

passed down, through several generations of a family because of it's valued

characteristics. Since 'heirloom' varieties have become popular in the past few

years there have been liberties taken with the use of this term for commercial

purposes.

 

Heirloom tomato experts, Craig LeHoullier and Carolyn Male, Ph.D. have

classified down heirlooms into four categories:

 

Commercial Heirlooms: Open-pollinated varieties introduced before 1940.

Family Heirlooms: Seeds that have been passed down for several generations

through a family.

 

Created Heirlooms: Crossing two known parents (either two heirlooms or an

heirloom and a hybrid) and dehybridizing the resulting seeds for how ever many

years/generations it takes to eliminate the undesirable characteristics and

stabilize the desired characteristics, perhaps as many as 8 years or more.

 

Mystery Heirlooms: Varieties that are a product of natural cross-pollination of

other heirloom varieties.

(Note: All heirloom varieties are open-pollinated but not all open-pollinated

varieties are heirloom varieties.)

 

============================================

Post subject: Heirloom tomatoes can provide a taste of heaven

 

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Sweet divinity

Heirloom tomatoes can provide a taste of heaven

By Christine Barbour

August 27, 2003

 

Bite into a ripe tomato and your mouth fills with the joyous taste of summer. A

little sweet, a little acid, still warm from the sun that ripened it, a really

great tomato needs nothing more than a bit of salt and pepper. I am happy eating

tomatoes in the garden without even that, right out of hand. Off the vine and

into the mouth, nothing could be better.

 

Well, but then there is the tomato sandwich — with just salt and pepper on

chewy, crusty bread. And tomato soup, chilled, with a dollop of sour cream.

 

Not to mention fresh salsa, the sweet tomatoes a cooling backdrop for the heat

of the chilies. And tomatoes roasted with olive oil, garlic, and herbs until

dense and caramelized.

 

 

(Vegetables, you ask? Isn't the tomato really a fruit? Well, yes, it was until

1893, when the Supreme Court, in Nix v. Hedden, ruled that since the tomato is

cooked and served like a vegetable as a main part of the meal and not as a

dessert, it's a vegetable regardless of its botanical classification.

 

Because the justices had never ended their meal with a luscious green tomato pie

or a sweet tomato sorbet, poor Mr. Nix, a fruit importer whose wares were

normally duty free, had to pay the vegetable tariff on his tomatoes. And you

thought the Court just decided presidential elections!)

 

But tomatoes, be they vegetable or fruit, are here at last, and it is worthwhile

taking a little time to search out the very best. Not that there is anything

wrong with any good home grown tomato, but the real wonders of the garden are

the heirlooms.

 

Heirloom tomatoes are open pollinated tomatoes that have been grown from seed

saved from earlier crops.

 

(Hybrid tomatoes, in contrast, do not reliably produce offspring like

themselves.) Some people maintain that to really qualify, heirloom seed must be

passed from generation to generation like a precious family quilt.

 

Once upon a time, all seed was " heirloom. "

 

Most people grew their own vegetables, or bought them from someone who grew

them. Fresh tomatoes were eaten when they were in season, and dreamed about when

they were not.

 

But in the 1940s, the market began to change. People wanted vegetables whether

in season locally or not, and as they moved to cities they got farther from the

farm in more ways than one.

 

Shopping in grocery stores for imported vegetables, they forgot that a good

tomato could be misshapen and cat-faced and still taste wonderful, and they

began to prefer uniform, picture-perfect year-round fruit.

 

All of which meant that the seed companies stopped selling commercial heirloom

seeds and went to work creating hybrids that could provide a dependable crop for

farmers, be shipped without damage, have a long shelf life, and look good to

consumers. The result? That rock hard, anemically pink, absolutely flavorless

tomato you can find all year in the grocery store. Whatever an heirloom is, this

is what it is not.

 

Even if the label on that supermarket tomato says " vine-ripened, " there is no

official regulation that says it must be so. More likely it was mechanically

harvested in some still-green stage in a far away place, loaded onto a truck,

and treated with ethylene gas to turn it red in transit.

 

The claim is that the gas ripens the fruit, but really, I think, it just turns a

green-colored green tomato into a red-colored green tomato. Certainly what

arrives in the store does not explode with tomato flavor, or any flavor at all.

 

Good tomato flavor (and vitamin C content, by the way) comes from the natural

ripening process. Real ripening takes place in the heat of the sun, preferably

when the tomato is still attached to the vine, when the sugar develops to offset

the acid, and that splendid, mouth-stinging, heart-singing tomato taste comes

out.

 

You can't get this in Indiana in the non-summer months. Period.

 

That doesn't stop the seed companies from developing seeds for imposter

tomatoes.

 

Even the hybrids for home growers, delicious as some of them may be, are still

designed for easy growing, for uniformity of size and shape, for resistance to

disease, and for beauty. They are not, simply and finally, all about taste.

 

In 1975, alarmed that the old fruit and vegetable strains were disappearing in

the onslaught of hybrids, Kent and Diane Whealy started the Seed Savers Exchange

(SSE, now online at seedsavers.org.). SSE encourages people to grow and

distribute the heirloom varieties of fruits, vegetables, grains and berries

developed on this continent by Native Americans, and Mennonite and Amish

communities, or imported by immigrant families.

 

They estimate that members of their nonprofit organization have distributed more

than 750,000 samples of seeds since their founding, and they lead a now

extensive movement to return flavor, character, and heritage to our diets.

 

 

Over 1,200 varieties of heirloom tomatoes alone have been documented and

preserved, and they are the jewel box of the garden. Purple with green

shoulders, bright yellow, green striped, streaky orange, blushing pink, or deep

red. Smooth or ruffled, shaped like plums, cherries, lemons, pears and hearts.

 

For all their gorgeous variety, what heirloom tomatoes almost always have in

common is their spicy scent and luscious flavor, and the promise that their

season is all too short.

 

Several vendors at the Bloomington Community Farmers Market sell heirloom

tomatoes on Saturdays, though you may need to be there early to get them. If

you'd like to see some on the vine, as it were, take a stroll through the

Hilltop Garden and Nature Center's Summer Youth Garden. All the tomatoes grown

by the kids are heirlooms, and their garden is a funny, lush, and happy place

for an afternoon walk. They are open to the public Monday through Friday, 1-5.

See Hilltop's Web site at http://www.indiana.edu/~hilltop/.

 

 

Christine would love to hear from you. She can be reached by e-mail at

cbarbour. Food Fare partner Jennifer Piurek, mindful that IU is back

in session, will offer some big sister advice on the " freshman 15 " problemand

how to keep the pounds off when you're away from home for the first time.

 

http://www.indiana.edu/~cbclass/HT/august27_03.htm

_________________

JoAnn Guest

mrsjoguest

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Genes

 

 

 

 

AIM Barleygreen

" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

 

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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