This is a bit North American, but still interesting...:
Heirloom vegetables: My grandpa gave me this tomatoEpicureans are rediscovering zebra-striped tomatoes, red carrots and purple string beansNANCY MACDONALD
Given all of the recent talk of genetically modified "Frankenfoods," people could be forgiven for running screaming from a lime green cauliflower, a black-and-yellow watermelon, or purple string beans. But what they may not realize is that these "heirloom" fruits and vegetables reveal what produce used to look like -- before we started standardizing it. Carrots, for instance, have not always been orange. In nature, they're also red or purple or white -- and they're just as likely to be spicy as sweet. Over the past 50 years, thanks to modern farming techniques, North American consumers have lost touch with the white peaches, tart "lemon cucumbers," and chocolate-tinted tomatoes that our grandparents enjoyed. But increasingly, as shoppers are willing to spend a bit extra for better, more authentic taste, they're choosing to stock their kitchens with candy-coloured heirloom fruits and veggies.
Behind the heirloom revival are chefs, epicureans and proponents of organic and ethical foods. The appeal, they say, is taste and variety. "We used to have thousands of varieties of apples," says Dan Jason, owner of Salt Spring Seeds, who has been growing heirloom plants and vegetables on Saltspring Island, B.C., since 1981. But in the '50s and '60s, he says, with the rise of industrial farming, "nutrition and taste lost out to strains that could resist herbicides and pesticides."
( Read more... )
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