So this is cool: a video that shows ten fruits and veggies that have changed so much throughout their history so as to be nearly unrecognisable. I knew about some of them, because I love heirloom veggies (counting down until I can have a garden again and plant them all; for now I just content myself with browsing the Diggers catalogue every now and then), and you can actually still buy seeds for a surprising number of ‘original’ or early versions of these (e.g. we pretty much only ever grow ‘rainbow’ carrots – a mixed pack with purple, yellow, white and orange – and yes, the colours do taste very subtlely different) but others, like the banana, I had no idea about!
It also reminds me of some interesting things I’ve read about how seed breeders rarely get asked to breed for improved flavour; it’s mostly about things like size, disease resistance, and longevity, which has interesting nutritional impacts, because research is revealing that basically, flavour = nutrition. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, I highly, highly recommend Dan Barber’s book, The Third Plate.
Happy Friday!