

The return of heritage fruits and vegetables - gruseom
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17912734

======
_delirium
As someone who's not _too_ worried about pesticides (though I'm not 100%
sanguine) but _is_ quite disappointed with the flavor of many commercial
cultivars, this is a bit more like what I hoped the 'organic' movement
would've moved into. Some smaller organic producers do produce some tastier
fruits/vegetables as a side effect, mostly because they don't pick them as
early, but the larger organic producers use the same pick-unripe practices as
regular agribusiness does, and more or less all of them use the same high-
yield, watery cultivars.

I would personally be happy with something in between on cultivars. It seems
that with a heritage tomato, for example, the goal is to get some crazy,
knobby looking things from the 18th century in various colors that are
_clearly_ different from round, red, commercial tomatoes. But I'd be happy
with round, red, commercial tomatoes from less high-yield, more flavorful
varieties that produce slower-growing, less-watery tomatoes, like what's grown
by the better farms in Greece or Italy. Nonetheless I can see how that'd be
difficult from a branding perspective; if you're going to introduce a new
cultivar and try to charge more for it, it's easier if it's _really_
distinctive in appearance.

~~~
joeyo
Unfortunately, large-scale agriculture optimizes for shipping and shelf-life
and when organic producers grow large enough, they must do the same. Tomatoes
are the classic example of this, but it's true for everything. For example,
pretty much all the avocados available in the US are the Hass variety---
because they have a nice, thick skin. But there are some really great tasting
varieties that are mostly unavailable outside of Central America or the
Caribbean simply because they don't transport well.

~~~
stephencanon
Several other varieties are available at the farmers markets in California.
When I was living there, I frequently found Bacon and Zutano avocados at the
Palo Alto market, for example.

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gouranga
Lets also not forget that the heritage varieties by nature are not hybrid
seeds which means that seed can be kept from the plants and planted the
following year.

If you take most commercial seed stock it's hybridised resulting in the seed
stock being tied to suppliers and not being replantable.

without trying to sound like a paranoid nutbag from abovetopsecret.com, the
latter is a serious risk to the food chain. The moment someone allows hybrids
to be patented, we all starve. Monsanto are actively working on this.

I've been growing about 200kg a year of non hybrid heritage vegetables for
about 10 years in the London suburbs. Totally different to the crap they sell
in the supermarkets.

~~~
micheljansen
Any advice on getting started? How do you bootstrap (get seeds etc.)?

~~~
DanBC
You search for societies aimed at sharing seeds. There are weird EU laws
around selling seeds - any seed has to be on a list and many heritage seeds
are not. Thus, people do not sell seeds, but sell access to a club through
which you'll get seeds.

([http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/members/seed_saving/introduc...](http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/members/seed_saving/introduction.php))

(<http://www.ukabc.org/seedawrd.htm>)

([http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/articles/psss-want-to-
buy...](http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/articles/psss-want-to-buy-some-
seeds))

I did some voluntary work on an allotment, and I met some of the old geezers
working on nearby plots and we'd share potatoes and tomatoes. It was great
fun, and we got some great food from it.

------
eps
Roses. I was buying roses not long ago and asked lady why they didn't smell
like they used to. To which she literally said - "the smell has been traded
for longevity." the same I guess goes for lots of veggies and fruits too.
Crispy and brightly colored, but tasteless.

------
jberryman
I'll use this article as an excuse to point people to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov> who set up one of the first
seed banks, and whose followers protected it through the siege of leningrad;
some even starving to death surrounded by bags of rice. Seeds in a bank in
Syria were recently moved out of the country to a nuclear bomb-proof vault in
Norway protect them from damage. Preserving biodiversity is serious stuff.

------
robotmay
I'm a historical re-enactor, and one thing we get to have a bit of fun with is
fruit & veg. Aside from sneaking totally inauthentic fruits into displays to
see if people notice ("why that coconut floated across the atlantic" etc), we
do have a few members who belong to a heritage seed club. One of my friends
brought along some Victorian breed of plum (mottled yellow/purple), which I
can honestly say was better than any other I've had.

Glad to see them making a comeback!

~~~
personlurking
While I'm not sure why this is on HN, historical re-enacting does interest the
amateur historian in me. How did you get started?

~~~
robotmay
The natural environment of the re-enactor is the pub; you just have to know
which one to loiter in ;)

Actually I got started by looking for local groups near me. There are three
main types of groups; battle re-enactors, living history, and the SCA.

Battle re-enactors are generally larger groups like the Sealed Knot or The
Vikings, who field quite large battles and maintain a pretty high level of
authenticity.

Living History is more about showing how people lived and explaining it to the
public. This is generally what I do (though we also do fighting). There's a
high level of authenticity and most people hand-make their clothing.

The SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) is an American thing which is quite
popular. Not authentic and somewhat closer to LARPing; it can, however, have
some really dedicated authenticity nuts in it. Fun if you're looking for
something less accurate.

In all honesty if you're curious; just go along to any local re-enactments
(<shamelessplug>if you're in the UK then you might turn up a few on my current
project:
[http://daysoutnearme.com</shamelessplug>](http://daysoutnearme.com</shamelessplug>))
or search around on Google for some local groups. Their sites will be
universally awful, but you can normally get through via email.

It's great fun and a really good way to see various castles and manors without
having to pay :)

~~~
personlurking
Living History sounds cool. I'm a big fan of all the different UK series such
as Tales from the Green Valley (1), Victorian Farm, Victorian Pharmacy,
Edwardian Farm, etc. I've seen them all, some several times.

(1) - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJkXkog9MwM> hint: the others mentioned
are also on Youtube.

~~~
robotmay
If you love that sorta thing then you may enjoy being a barber-surgeon/doctor
in a living history group. It involves a bit of expense in acquiring all the
tools and knowledge, but you'll be by far the most popular person with the
public.

One of my friends does it in our group; he constantly has a crowd of 5-10
people gathered around his stall listening to the gory details. Everyone's
interested in the weapons and fighting, but they're -really- interested in
seeing how a trepanning tool works.

------
madamepsychosis
On a related note: the UK startup Growington is doing a great job.
<http://growington.com/>

------
bprater
In a similar vein, I'm curious what thoughts hackers have about Monsanto.

~~~
DanBC
Being able to destroy a farmer for unknowingly growing Monsanto patented crops
(via contamination of an otherwise non Monsanto field) seems really fucking
lousy.

~~~
jberryman
I agree, and have no love for Monsanto, but from what I recall the huge class-
action lawsuit brought against them was recently thrown out for, among other
things, lack of evidence that that was in fact happening to a significant
degree.

