Admired for their distinctive, unusual and exaggerated pumpkin-like shape, and vivid colouration, Heirloom tomatoes are a chef’s delight. As the name indicates, heirloom seed varieties are passed down through several generations because they have been favoured and are considered worth keeping.

 

Unlike their hybrid cousins, heirlooms are open-pollinated which means they reproduce new fruits that are identical to their parent. Every heirloom is genetically unique, and most are indeterminate. Through years of evolution, they have become resistant to pests and diseases, and have adapted to grow in specific conditions and climates. In contrast hybrid tomatoes, are grown or genetically modified under carefully controlled conditions for commercial distribution. They are picked while green, and artificially ripened during shipping, resulting in the tasteless firm red balls we frequently buy in supermarkets. Replacing heirlooms grown by generations of family and small farming communities, with mass-produced hybrids, not only causes genetic erosion, but also puts food production at risk from plant epidemics.

 

Heirlooms are diverse in their varieties – each one totally unique. The   only common ground they share is that they are left to ripen naturally on the vine. The results? A prized, tasty, nutritious survivor of mother nature. Handle their fragile ripened state with care, and avoid refrigerating them if you can to avoid affecting their flavour and texture. If possible, enjoy them within 2-3 days of being picked, or turn them into delicious sauces or pastes to preserve.

 

These old fashioned antique Great Grand Daddies of tomatoes are important to the stewardship of our planet. If we continue to destroy the planet’s naturally evolved and genetically diversified foods in favour of commercially farmed ones, we erode the already precarious balance between abundance and starvation. It is resources like these heirloom tomatoes that stand between the two extreme positions and if not careful, the things that nature intended for us to enjoy over hundreds of years, will be a distant memory. Our culinary choices will not only be restricted to food created in a laboratory, but may become extinct all together.