HONORING THE BEAUTIFUL EVOLUTION OF TASTE NOW

Heirloom fruits and vegetables reward us with pure, clear, complex taste and visual beauty. They’ve evolved from a diverse range of varietal seeds that were kept true. They offer more sensory drama and joy than commercial varieties. And they are worth preserving for generations to come.

We’re sharing some of our favorite new recipes that make these ancient edibles really shine.

This Heirloom Tomato Tart with Gruyere & Thyme, Cristina Rosu, of Cristina’s Kitchen, is a perfectly gorgeous way to show off both the visual and the flavor splendor of heirloom tomatoes.

Rosu showers the bottom of her blind-baked homemade shortcrust pastry shell, first with fresh thyme leaves, then with a flurry of grated gruyere.

She thinly slices a medley of fluted heirloom tomatoes, showing off their deeply scalloped edges. She salts them to discharge some of their water, intensifying their flavor and reducing the chance of a soggy bite.

She fans them out over the cheese, then repeats the thyme, cheese, & tomato layers two more times. She then bakes the tart until the tomatoes dry out a bit more, concentrating their beautiful heritage, into a sublime riff on a deep dish pizza.

Get the recipe here.

PINK PEARL APPLE CARPACCIO

Pink Pearl Apples are an heirloom variety, linked back to an ancient Turkish varietal. They are prized for their flush of pink marbling and their crisp tart taste. Their skin is a blushed cream. Their flowers are bright fuschia.Their season is short.

Pink Pearl Apples  retain their color when they bake. But Susan Hathaway, of Peninsula Eatz, likes to show them off in the raw. She shaves them into paper thin carpaccio, then dresses them with roasted walnuts, crumbled cheese and fresh herbs.  

Get the recipe here.

Heirlooms tend to taste better. And we love the sheer variety, distinctive shapes, and unique colors. Some varieties can be traced back thousands of years.

Unlike commercial hybrids, who have been intentionally cross-pollinated to reduce variation, the aim is to prevent cross pollination to preserve the purity of heirloom plants.

Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes and Other Forgotten Foods, by Jennifer A. Jordan, explores the reasons why a "growing number of people seek in heirlooms both a new culinary experience and a connection to a more generalized past."

Jordan has an explanation for why I long for the sour cherry pies I ate as a child. I remember every taste note, the feel of the red fruit squishing bursts of nirvana juice against a real butter pastry crust. She calls it edible memory.

While today’s commercial produce is more dull and homogenous, genetic diversity is embedded in heirloom seeds, yielding distinct colors, shapes, and  memorable flavor profiles.

Families pass seeds down through generations to preserve their edible memories, guaranteeing that the flavors and textures they hold dear can carry on forever. 

We have an old rhubarb patch on our farm that got passed to us by the property’s former owners, who inherited it from line of 5 generations of farmers. We have a mad passion for it and the pies it yields.

Today there are more than 300 seed libraries across the US dedicated to saving heirloom plants.

You can purchase heirloom seeds at a few dedicated purveyors, such as Zürsun Idaho Heirloom Beans, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, and Trade Winds Fruit.

Read more about Beautiful Evolution, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including The Beautiful Evolution Of Mimicry Now and Check Out Evolution’s New Tree of Life.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Cristina Rosu, of Cristina’s Kitchen. Heirloom Tomato Tart with Gruyere & Thyme.
2. Image: by Cristina Rosu, of Cristina’s Kitchen. Heirloom Tomatoes.
3. Image: by Susan Hathaway, of Peninsula Eatz. Pink Pearl Apple Carpaccio.
4. Image: by Spiced Coffee. Pink Pearl Apples.
5. Image: Courtesy of Cultural Heritage Happenings in Durham. Heirloom French Breakfast Radish.
6. Image: Courtesy of Trade Winds Fruit. Red Leaved, Hyacinth Bean.
7. Image: Courtesy of University of Chicago Press. Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes & Other Forgotten Foods.
8. Image: Courtesy of Jennifer Jordan. Author Jennifer Jordan at an Apple Farm in the Central Coast of California  (circa 1976).
9. Image: by Illene Pevec, for Roaring Fork Lifestyle. Painted Mountain Corn.
10. Image: Courtesy of Jeremiah C. Gettle & Emilee Freie Gettle, of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. Eggplants.
11. Image: by Stephen Bowler. Rhubarb.
12. Image: by Four Doxn. Hummers and Artichokes.
13. Image: Courtesy of Zürsun Idaho Heirloom Beans. Calypso Heirloom Beans.
14. Image: by Earth100. Eggplant Flower in Hong Kong.
15. Image: Courtesy of Heritage Food Crops. Assorted Beans.
16. Image: Courtesy of Letters from Shenanigan Valley Idaho. White Pippin or White Pearmain?
17. Image: by BN App - Download now!
18. Image: by Lauren V. Allen, of Viedfinder.