THE NEW WORLD OF OLD VEGETABLES

Re-inventing grow-your-own vegetables

Desperate for vegetables

Dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction and despair stoked my interest in something different. “Hokkaido” pumpkins, “Green Zebra” tomatoes and a bouquet of exotic sounding lettuce. The shrinking choice of vegetables in stores is frustrating, and the slump in quality worrisome. The statistics shock. Vitamin content of most vegetables has dropped a drastic 70% compared to the eighties. A figure that holds true right across the vegetable basket. Nearly four fifths of the choice of vegetables our grandparents had in their gardens has disappeared.

Saving seeds

Arche Noah (Europe’s largest private vegetable seed bank) is scrambling to save “heritage” vegetable varieties before they’ve gone for good. For Arche Noah and other organisations like it, America’s Seed Savers Exchange and Switzerland’s Pro Specia Rara, the preservation of genetic material is vital. Nobody knows what trouble waits around the evolutionary corner. Saved varieties may be essential to genetically fortify modern hybrids and stave off future global food famine. But in the meantime efforts from Arche Noah and co. are creating an awareness of our “historical treasures”. They sound the “wake up call” knocking us to our senses and the sad fact that once-upon-a-time vegetable variety was enormous.

New Brave World

The commercial marketplace looks for uniformity, longevity and the ability to transport well. Parameters that shrink choice. Enter the world of grow-your-own and brave new world opens. This is a world of great diversity. The variations within families of vegetables in colour, taste and smell seem boundless. Confirmed by historical tit bits gleefully tossed at the new-to-growing by the vege-cognoscenti. Carrots were originally purple not orange (bred orange in honour of the Royal Dutch House of Orange); cucumbers were once a major Austrian export (as far as America); and broad beans were regularly dished up on East Tyrolean dinner tables. The bean today makes a guest appearance on expensive menus of top-ranking chefs. The likes of Ducasse and Raymond Blanc all tend private potagers. They have realised that all vegetables are not equal. They know there’s a fine discerning taste experience waiting in even the lowliest of common vegetables.

Getting to know vegetables

“Vegetable tastings” are the perfect opportunity of getting to know differences. Arche Noah and vegetable specialist nurseries like Gärtnerei Bach in Vienna hold tastings annually. Erich Stekovich a vegetable farmer south of Vienna with a serious tomato collection. He is happy to share the passion that “just grew” by prior appointment. Stekovich has a tomato for every palate and human condition. “White Beauty” pale, with extreme low acidity is the tomato for rheumatic or allergy sufferers. He also grows hotter vegetables. Growing chillies requires keen dedication in Europe’s cold and short-growing climate. But still many grow-from-seed gardeners are able to get hold of the true treasures of the genus Capsicum. Top tongue shaker is the Habanero chilli “Red Savina” with a hot factor of 10 on the Scoville heat scale.

Just in time lettuce

Guests to my garden in Attersee are served lettuce picked à la minute. There’s “Forellenschuß” or “Freckles” the Austrian heirloom classic next to Italian Lollo varieties grown from seed in peat pots. Lettuce from Asia, “Mizuma” and “Mustard Red Giant” ” are easy to grow with seed bands in situ. Self-seeded herbs Chervil, Coriander add extra flavour to salads. And growing happily in the lettuce menagerie are sweet peas, cosmea and roses. I have grown to love cucumbers my most-hated childhood veg. They love drape over arches providing an eat-and-come-again salad addition. This year I’ll add “Melotria” a small olive-sized cucumber a children’s favourite and a splendid mix with cocktail tomatoes.

Connecting

Whether a novice gardener with the smallest possible space available or professional that knows it all, growing vegetables from seed still excites. Elmar Ströhle a Vorarlberg farmer, who delivers gourmet restaurants, goes to laborious extremes, beyond the call of duty, to achieve his crop of heirloom carrots. And why? His answer: “When I’m in my field, put my hands in the warm earth and pull up my carrots, that’s for me an indescribable feeling of happiness!”

External links:

• www.kurier.at/freizeit

Copyright © www.lifeart.net February 2006