Going back to old roots

FRUIT and vegetables can surprise you – as author Christopher Stocks discovered when he embarked on a quest to rediscover the favourites of the past, writes Sarah Pitt.

A writer who likes to look at history from unusual angles, Christopher pored over Victorian seed catalogues and old maps to research a book that will intrigue both gardeners and history lovers. Our tastes in fruit and veg have changed over the years, he found, with some once common-or- garden things elevated up the social scale, while one-time novelties have become commonplace.

Take the cauliflower, which no modern-day gardener would describe as the life and soul of the veg patch. Back in the 18th century it was a very smart vegetable indeed, which gentlemen on big estates would compete to grow.

Then there are tomatoes, which were shunned by our ancestors for 200 years after being introduced from South America because the fruit was thought to be poisonous, being of the same family as deadly nightshade. Our Victorian forebears started gingerly to eat them, but only after vigorously boiling them. They would have been horrified at the idea of eating them raw.

Meanwhile, the peasant populations of the Mediterranean were merrily throwing them into pasta sauces, and suffering no ill effects.

Carrots as we know them – orange, long, full-shaped and sweet of flavour – were brought over from Holland, where they were reputedly bred as a symbol of Protestant resistance (think William of Orange) during the long and bloody Spanish occupation. First grown in this country in the sandy soils of Kent, they naturally ousted the stringy wild specimens, which would have come in white, purple, yellow and red.

Growing your own might be back in fashion, but Christopher discovered that in fact the Victorians had many more varieties of fruit and vegetables to choose from than we do, and everyone, rich and poor, worked their own plot.

One Suttons Seeds catalogue from the 1850s offers no fewer than 53 varieties of peas; today there are 12.

"I thought, where did they all go?" Christopher says. "At that time they had 42 varieties of cabbage and 37 sorts of lettuce, and there were 62 varieties of peach. I suddenly thought 'gosh, there is a huge amount of untold stories there'.

"There are so many wonderful stories. One of the things I love most are the daft names.

"One of my favourite things was Orange Jelly, a turnip (with jelly-like flesh when cooked) and Tender and True, a parsnip that was named after a popular song of the time."

Some varieties, he says, stopped being grown for good reason – they just weren't very good.

But others offer a superior flavour to modern commercial varieties – they just don't keep or travel well, which makes them ideal for the home gardener to try.

Christopher himself grows Prince Albert peas in his garden on the Isle of Portland off the Dorset coast. This vigorous Victorian variety grows to double the size of typical modern dwarf peas, bred to allow them to be grown on an industrial scale.

"Because they are twice as high they are much easier to pick – you don't have to bend down," he says. "They have just got a wonderful taste."

The stories behind the old varieties were not always straightforward – but this, says Christopher, is what makes them intriguing.

He visited specialist libraries – in particular the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library in London – as well as local records offices.

He found poring over old maps particularly enlightening in the case of tracing the origins of several Westcountry apple varieties.

The Bascombe Mystery, a dessert apple grown in Kent in the mid-19th century, may have originated from Galmpton, near Brixham in Devon, which has a Bascombe Road, the only mention of "Bascombe" that he could find on any map.

He also delves into the story of the Tom Putt, a stalwart old Westcountry cider apple which could have been propagated by one of two Tom Putts; the Reverend Thomas Putt, rector of the village of Trent, then in Somerset but now in Dorset, or his uncle Sir Thomas Putt, barrister and owner of the Combe House estate at Gittisham, near Honiton in East Devon.

Either way, this tree is ideal for the climate in the Westcountry, yielding a heavy crop of small red-striped apples even in windy, wet weather.

Christopher hopes that his book, in describing some of the best of the old varieties will encourage today's gardeners to give them a go.

He lists seed suppliers and nurseries stocking older varieties in his book – including Thornhayes Nursery in Mid Devon, which specialises in traditional apple and cherry varieties of Devon and Cornwall. "It could have been a rather depressing book about all the things we have lost, but I didn't want to just concentrate on that," he says.

"What became more interesting was to discover all the varieties that have survived."

Forgotten Fruits was shortlisted for the Food Book of the Year at the 2009 Guild of Food Writers Awards.