Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes and Other Forgotten Foods by Jennifer A. Jordan

Author:Jennifer A. Jordan [Jordan, Jennifer A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780226228242
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2015-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

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Lost Plums & Found Mangoes

AS WITH VEGETABLES, rare and nearly forgotten fruits speak to global histories and memory (and forgetting) both private and collective, and flourish under the care of individual farmers and small groups of enthusiasts. One of the many people preserving fruit biodiversity is Andy Mariani. His orchards on the edge of Silicon Valley, tucked between subdivisions and dry golden hills, contain a rich reserve of stone fruit germplasm, and acres of vibrant, thriving trees.1 This orchard is in many ways emblematic of the concept of heirloom food—a pocket of biodiversity including fruit with long histories connected to global movements and individual appetites. When I visited the orchard one summer, I arrived a little early on a Saturday morning, taking an exit I’d never used before off a freeway I’ve known my entire life, Highway 101, heading into the Santa Clara Valley. As I approached the turnoff, the sun broke through the fog, revealing housing developments creeping up into the yellow hills. As the road wound down the off ramp and toward the orchard, a new shopping complex of big box stores announced its grand opening, and row upon row of townhouses and McMansions filled this part of the valley. I drove by an abandoned orchard, a few unruly fruit trees in dry scrubby ground. It’s easiest to see the orchard remnants in the springtime, when telltale white and pink blossoms peek out above backyard fences, the wild edges of office parks, and highway rights-of-way. There are also many California microclimates—stone fruit thrives on the outskirts of Silicon Valley, somewhat protected from the maritime fog and enjoying copious summertime heat and sunshine. An hour away, where I grew up, only apple trees could tolerate the pea soup fog of our summers.

Growing up, I’d always heard that the Santa Clara Valley was once filled with fruit trees, and each time we drove through on a family trip my father lamented their displacement by tract homes. So it surprised me to hear from Mariani that much of the area had actually been home to vineyards long before the valley was filled with fruit trees. Fruit trees began to displace the vineyards in part because of Prohibition, although wine-making continued in the area, both officially for religious purposes, and unofficially for other purposes. But the orchards also grew more widespread because of improvements in irrigation (the vineyards were dryland farmed, while the stone trees required irrigation), and the potential, at the time, for fruit trees to offer greater profits—a reversal of today, where vineyards are highly profitable and spreading across the state.2

Of course, for some people stone fruit is even easier to turn into alcohol than grapes are—a couple of fruit trees, a home-built still, and you’re just a bit shy of a bottle of plum brandy or apricot schnapps, things many central European farmers made on the side (and often out of view of the tax authorities) and handed out to landless friends in unlabeled bottles. When I

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