New Project: Old Fruit

So if you have followed me over at the Tanglewood Farm blog (A Pinch of Something Nice) you'll know that I have been slowly creeping toward the realization of this project for a long time. My passions have strayed towards the historical fruit for many years. From my historical strawberry plant collection to my life here living in an historical orchard to the fact that any time I see an old book on fruit I have to buy it, I have daydreamed of historical fruit since I learned that modern fruit was bred for anything other than the improvement of taste and texture.

You see, modern fruit (since the introduction of refrigeration, and coincidentally freezing, in the 1930's) had been bred to be durable, as well as tasty. Somewhere along the line government breeding stations shifted their primary focus from the fruit's actual palatability to it's shipability and it's storage life. The strawberries of today are very different from those that existed 150 years ago.

Now, I'll agree that the durability of a fruit is an important thing. Living in Michigan, I often find myself pining for fruits like figs and bananas, and obviously they have to travel a long way to get here. I even admit that I picked up several organic nectarines from California last week on a cloudy grumpy day and have been enjoying one a day ever since. (In fact, they have made me realize that if I had to choose one single fruit to enjoy for the rest of my life it would be nectarines. Mmm.)

Still, the promise of a difference in flavor an texture in the old varieties entice me to learn more.

So, I've begun to collect research, information and observation of pre 1930's fruit varieties. I'm not sure if I'll ever get anything published, or if I'll self publish, or if I'll just sit at home and clutch my notebooks and smile and rock back and forth while humming, but I do know that there is a growing interest in heirloom edibles and there is a very sorry lacking in heirloom fruit resources. I am a picky lady, and maybe that is why I have yet to find a book that fully satisfies me, but I suppose from that pickiness I hope to spawn a superior collection of information for the casual and more devoted reader.

So over the next few years I'll be gathering information, traveling and tasting, documenting and photographing, and I'm sure someone else will write and publish that special book that I'm looking for, right before I find myself feeling "finished" but that's okay. I'll try shopping it around to a few publishers once I get a clear plan in my head, but we'll just have to wait and see where this takes me.

I'm doing this for the journey, and primarily for myself. Of course, I want to share everything I learn and do for this book with you eventually, too, but this is mostly for me :)

So. Here is my quest for you, dear readers (I know you're not really there, but we'll pretend...)

Share with me your favorite pre-1939 fruits, and let me know when you spot heritage or heirloom fruits for sale. I'm going to be doing some traveling specifically for this project, so if you know of a place that grows fruits from the past, let me know! If you spot that perfect Doyenne Gris pear at your local market, shoot me a facebook message! I'm particularly interested in stone fruits and berries since they seem to be harder to find old varieties of.

I really need to know the cultivars and varieties when possible. A greengage plum could be anything from a modern cross to a 16th century original Reine Claude, so variety names are important to me. :)

You can follow the farm facebook page here. I'm really hoping to use that page to collect some heirloom sightings from readers, friends and families. If you're not sure if it's an heirloom, post it anyway and I'll do some research on it!