Required Reading: Heritage Fruits & Vegetables - Gardenista
Photographs by Clay Perry. On visiting the gardens of Britain’s great country houses we hope, even expect, to see a wonderful kitchen garden on proud display. A 224-page hardcover copy of Heritage Fruits and Vegetables is $83.75 from Amazon. Figs were brought to Britain by the Romans. Plum ‘Apricot Gage’, introduced in the 20th century. Gages are smaller than other varieties of plum and are oval-shaped. Photographer Clay Perry conceived this book, and it was his idea to simulate the look of early larders... ...in the style of 16th century Spanish still-life painters. The “sticks” are the part we are concerned with, the large leaves of rhubarb being poisonous. Zucchini ‘Cocozelle’ is an Italian heritage variety with large flowers. Kohlrabi ‘White Vienna’. The Roman diarist Pliny called it the “Corinthian turnip” and sadly, turnips themselves suffer from an image problem. Beautiful and strange and thankfully delicious too, cauliflower ‘Romanesco Minaret’ is a rediscovered Italian cultivar. It mingles very happily with tomato and chilli, served with pasta, in the River Cafe cookbook Green by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, long-term champions of cooking seasonally. Abpve: Asparagus ‘Connover’s Colossal’, an American variety from mid-19th century New York... ...renowned for its very large spears. They may take up a lot of space, they may require patience between planting and the first crop but they are intensely rewarding to grow. From left: ‘Rainbow’, ‘Rhubarb’, and ‘Swiss’. It was all but forgotten during the Middle Ages and even now it is not much available in supermarkets. Says Musgrave: “These curious cucurbits did not catch the imagination of wealthy garden owners in the way melons and cucumbers did.” Americans have always been much more keen on pumpkins and squash.