You’ll likely have seen the word ‘heirloom’ preceding vegetable dishes at restaurants, in supermarkets, and even your garden centre lately. Tomatoes have been the biggest recipients of the term but what does heirloom actually mean?

Roma, cherry, and Clarence truss are the usual suspects you’ll find in the supermarket and are the species that most people would recognise so it’s understandable that folks often assume that ‘heirloom tomatoes’ are their own species. The name is rather an umbrella term for fruit grown from heritage or rare seeds.

Welcome to the exciting, nerdy world of heirloom.

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With more than 300,000 edible plants available to us, it is disturbing to consider that most of the world’s population consumes less than 0.1 percent of those options. Of those that we do consume, the vast majority come in one, maybe two varieties, that are grown fast for maximum yield and uniform appearance.

Heirloom varieties generally take a bit longer to produce and may look a little bit quirky, but the flavour and nutritional quality doesn’t even compare to a conventional alternative. Due to their heritage, heirloom varieties also tend to be more resistant to pests and disease.

The beautiful Black Russian tomato, Brandywine, Ox Heart, and Genuwine species are probably the most common heirloom varieties of late and each brings its own unique flavour, texture and colour to the plate.

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Add in some varied ripeness and a sad salad of grainy flavourless tomatoes can become a textural event of sweet, sour, crunch, squish and even creaminess. It really is explosive fun once you get into it.

We told you it was nerdy.

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