Tonight I attended a delightful little food tasting event as part of the Farm to Table Conference. There were about a dozen exhibitors there tonight, and everything I tasted was simply lovely. There is so much to talk about from the conference earlier today as well, but I’d like to save that for a little later. A few vendors stood out in particular tonight for me. Local sprout farmer Chris Wahlberg of Mung Dynasty was there serving some of his wonderful soup. Tonight’s offering was a lovely sprouted sweet- and english-pea soup garnished with mustard sprouts. It was a lovely take on the traditional split-pea soup and the sprouted peas gave a nice toothsome texture.

There was some wonderful locally raised turkey and chicken, raw milk cheeses, hydroponic lettuces, local hormone-free cottage cheese, and some local cheese from Emerald Valley Artisan Cheeses. Not quite so local but still tasty was some smoked salmon and fish chowder from Alaska Wild Salmon Company. After all that cheese it was time for a little wine, and lucky for me Joseph Skocik of Plum Run Winery brought along a delightful array. I sampled a few of his varieties earlier today, and added one more to the list tonight. Among my favorites were his Elderberry, Mulberry, and Honey Mead for the sweets, and the Pinot Noir and for something drier.

What better to go with my wine than some locally made chocolates? I couldn’t think of anything- so chocolates it was. Taste of Chocolate is located in Saxonburg PA and makes all of their chocolates by hand in-house. While their Amaretto decadence is one of their best selling confections, I was partial to the chocolate covered dried cherries. While I was tempted to get Jeremy a packet of chocolate covered local bacon, I decided that one chocolate-bacon candy was enough for the year. I think we’re over the bacon fad anyhow.

I finished off the night with some simple yet savory mushroom toast. All night I’d noticed everyone carrying these delightful looking canape type toasts, but hadn’t seen them. Turns out it was hiding by the cash-bar by the second entrance. A lovely two-tiered dish of minced sauteed mushrooms with baguette toast and grated cheese. I only wish I knew who made the lovely mushroom dish, so simple yet so perfect.

Tomorrow morning they are having an organic local breakfast for those of us attending the early-morning demonstrations and speakers. The flyer boasts organic fruits, raw milk yoghurt and kefir smoothies, buckwheat pancakes (my favorite!), local raw honey, and a myriad of savory breakfast goodies. I’m excited as this makes getting there by 9:30am for the fermentation workshop much more bearable.

• Early Girl: Bears heavy crops extremely early, continues longer than most varieties
• Big Beef: Extra large, 10-12 oz., red fruits are firm, juicy and highly flavored
• Big Boy: Rich, tangy flavor, extremely juicy, solid texture
• Better Boy: Huge, delicious, red fruits, many 1 lb. each. Good leaf coverage

All of these are good tomatoes and great choices for someone not as interested in maintaining heirloom lines. I grew these and other conventional tomatoes for many years, and they definitely have the advantage of being available at almost any garden center or commercial nursery.

Gradually I began swapping out my conventional seedlings for heirlooms. My local food co-op happens to carry a variety of heirloom and organic vegetable seedlings in the spring and early summer, which really helped me get started with these wonderful plants. I still grow heirlooms, but now I go a step further and start my own seeds, rather than purchasing seedlings.

2006 was the first year I grew exclusively heirloom tomatoes. I was still using chemical fertilizers such as Miracle-Gro, but that’s a discussion for another day. I chose four heirloom seedlings from my co-op based on nothing other than what sounded tasty and interesting. I’d never grown potato-leaf tomatoes before, so I made sure to choose a few of those. My choices that year were:

• Brandywine: red steak tomato, potato-leaf, late 1800’s amish
• Chianti Rose: pink brandywine and italian cross, potato-leaf, unknown date
• Garden Peach: small yellow with a soft “peach fuzz”, native origin is peru
• Ruby Gold: large variegated red and yellow steak tomato

The Ruby Gold and Brandywine both produced very large, heavy, meaty fruit in a modest quantity. The flavor was lovely- perfect for slicing and eating on sandwiches or in a salad. the Chianti Rose gave me average sized tomatoes, of an average yield, and an average flavor. They were very soft-fleshed and mostly ended up in my tomato-sauce pot. The Garden Peach gave me such a bounty of tomatoes that they would fall off the vine before I got a chance to pick them all! These tomatoes were lovely little ping-pong ball sized golden yellow beauties covered in a soft fuzz. I gave many of these away as gifts, sauced some, and ate even more just as they were. I have a special place in my heart for these little guys, as they bring back fond memories from my childhood. I can’t help but reminisce over watching Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (the cartoon version of course), and how similar these sweet tomatoes are to the adorable FT, short for Furry Tomato.

2007 was a bad year for tomatoes for the home-gardener in my area. Across the board, tomatoes were maturing very late, and producing poorly. I had the deck stacked against me as I also had to container-garden my tomatoes rather than planting them in their usual spot along the garage, as I was moving mid-summer. I decided to grow only three varieties last year. I grew a a pink, a white, and Black Krim. Unfortunately, I cannot recall what the white and pink tomatoes were. These poor tomatoes, they did really try their best. I got a few large fruit off the Krim, a couple fleshy pinks, and a few small but adorable whites. Nowhere near the amount I needed for my yearly canning endeavors, so I resorted to farmers market tomatoes for that.

This year will be better. The tomatoes will be grown in one spot, with plenty of room this year. They will be planted in rich yummy soil and watered with the finest of fish-tank water. All I need is for mother nature to be kind and do her job well. I’ve chosen to grow a minimum of four varieties this year and, as I’ve mentioned previously, I’m likely to pick up a few seedlings locally. I’d like to try my hand at a white tomato again as they are quite lovely and sweet.

While I’m on the subject of tomatoes, there are a few interesting links I’d like to share. First, for those of you interested in growing heirloom tomatoes yourself there is Garden Desk’s handy post- The Pros and Cons of Heirloom Tomatoes. There is also a wonderful blog dedicated to that favorite fruit of mine, Tomato Casual. Lastly, a sad bit of tomato news for the state of Pennsylvania. Our top tomato farmer for direct-to-market tomatoes is quitting the tomato business, citing lack of labor.

The article opens with the tag-line “A person would have had to eat three apples in 1991 to supply the same iron content as one in 1940.” It continues on to illustrate how, through the pursuit of our beautiful and high-yield crops, that we have lost a significant amount of nutrition over the past 50 or so years. For example

• “Spinach’s potassium content dropped by 53 percent, its phosphorus by 70 percent, its iron by 60 percent and its copper by 96 percent.”
• “The iron content of meat products declined by an average of 54 percent.”
• “The higher tomato yields (in terms of harvest weight), the lower the concentration of vitamin C, levels of lycopene (the key antioxidant that make tomatoes red) and beta-carotene (a vitamin A precursor.)”
• “High production dairy cows produce milk that is less concentrated with fat, protein and other nutrition-enhancing components and are also more vulnerable to a range of metabolic diseases, infections and reproductive problems.”

Guess I’m not so crazy about growing my own food the good old fashioned way. Guess I’m equally not crazy for wanting to grow heirloom varieties over hybrids. A lot of comments on the article are about eating organic fruit and veg, which I think are missing the boat. Just because something is grown organically doesn’t mean the seed isn’t a hybridized or GMO variety. If you look at what was being grown prior to 1940, you’ll see that it was primarily that which is now known as heirloom. WWII is when most of the hybrids were created in the name of increasing yield for the victory gardeners.

Think back as far as you can. Do you remember eating strawberries as a child? Have you eaten one lately? Do you notice a difference? I do. I’m hunting high and low for a good heirloom or similar variety of strawberry for my garden. I’m sick of the gigantic glossy mealy tasteless fruit you find in stores these days. Even the seedlings from my favorite garden centers are depressingly bland. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ve let the succulent and juicy, if somewhat more seed-filled, fruit of our childhoods die out.