Disappearing Foods From New England?

Here is a list I found of foods disappearing from New England on The Eating Well Magazine website. I grew Amish Paste Tomatoes (on the list) last year and I like them and will grow them again. Some of these things I have never heard of - but then I am "new" to New England.

Disappearing Foods (Full List)
Abenaki Potato
Acme Tomato
Agawam Grape
Algonquian Red Speckled Bean
American (Standard) Bronze Turkeys
American Butternut
American Chestnut
American Golden Russett/Bullock Apples
American Pippin Apples
Amish Paste Tomato
Amish Pie Squash/Pumpkin
Atlantic Cod
Bailey Sweet Apples
Bakery's Squash
Baldwin Apples
Bearpaw Popcorn
Bearpaw Runner Bean
Beaut Tomato
Beauty of Hebron Potato
Beaveny Valley Purple Jerusalem Artichoke
Berkshire Polish Tomato
Bethel Apples
Bevan's Favorite Apples
Black Mennonite Popcorn
Black Oxford Apples
Black Spanish Winter Radish
Blackcoat Runner Bean
Boothby's Blonde Cucumbers
Boston Marrow Squash
Bottle Greening Apples
Bronx Seedless Grape
Bumblebee Bean
Butternut
Campfield Apples
Canada Crookneck Squash
Canadian Gem Rutabaga/Turnip
Canadienne Cattle
Canandaigua Grape
Caribou Pea
Cayuga Ducks
Champion of England Pea Bean
Champlain Apples
Chandler Apples
Chantecler Chickens
Charette/The Donut Apples
Charles Murphey's Shell Bean
Cheerio Tomato
Chester Bean
Chimney Apples
Coles Quince Apples
Conqueror Tomato
Crosby's Early Corn
Cutchogue Cheese Squash
Dan O'rourke Pea Bean
Danish Ballhead Shortstem Cabbage
Danvers Carrot
Davey Apples
Delaware Grape
Deserento Potato Bean
Doctor Apples
Duane Baptiste's Potato Bean
Dutchess Grape
Early Chantenay Carrot
Early Cluster Pickling, Russian Cucumbers
Early Cory Corn
Early Dean Sweet Corn
Early Goodrich Potato
Early Scarlet Horn Carrot
Early Vermont Corn
Early White Cory Corn
Essex Turban Long Pie Squash

Evelyn Persimmon
Far North Sea Tomato
Fayette Shellbark Hickory
First of All Corn
Fisher Bean
Flagg Bean
Flat Egyptian Beet
Fordhook Gem Melon
Fort Kent Gold Flint Corn
Fox Grape
Fox Shagbark Hickory
Ganondaga Flint Corn
Garland Flint Corn
Gaspé Flint Corn
Gilfeather Rutabaga/Turnip
Gloria Mundi/Ox Apples
Goff Grape
Golden Heirloom Bean
Green Delicious Squash
Green Mountain Potato
Guinea Parsnip
Ha-go-wa (Seneca Flint) Corn
Harrison Apples
Harrison Potato
Hunt Russett Apples
Hyslop (Hyssop) Crab Apples
Ice Bean
Indian Oblong Long Pie Squash
Iron Mountain Peach
Iroquois Brown Bean
Iroquois Calico Flour Corn
Iroquois Cranberry Bean
Iroquois White Giant Flour Corn
Java Chickens
Jersey Buff Turkeys
Jersey Giant Chickens
John Coffer/Dale Strain Sorghum
Kahnawake Pole Bean
Katahdin Potato
King of Early Bean
King of Early Corn
Lady's Thumb
Lancaster Surecrop Corn
Lane's Imperial Sugar Beet
Late Strawberry Apples
Lawson Pear
Lazy Housewife Bean
Leather Britches Bean
Long Blood Red Beet
Longfellow Flint Corn
Luther Hill Sweet Corn
Maine Giant Jerusalem Artichoke
Maine Yellow Eye Bean
Marblehead Mammoth Cabbage
Marblehead Mammoth Squash
Mayfare Pea Bean
Mayflower Bean
Maygog Early Pea Bean
Mcleans Little Pea Bean
Melon Apples
Mennonite Red Beet
Milking Devon Cattle
Mohawk Round Nose Flour Corn
Mohawk White Hominy Corn
Montreal Nutmeg Melon
Morgan's Mill Corn
Mostellers Wild Goose Bean
Mull Kidney Bean
New Queen Potato
Newtown Spitzenburg Apples
Old Champion Pea Bean
Onondaga Kidney Bean
Orange Oxheart Tomato
Ortley/Greasy Pippin Apples
Oxford Yellow Eye Bean
Painted Lady Runner Bean
Pearmain, Summer Apples
Peck's Pleasant Apples
Pennsylvania Dutch (Hawwerwurzel) Salsify
Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Corn
Penobscott Squash
Primate Apples
Rambo (Winter) Apples
Rand (Black Spanish) Long Radish
Randall Lineback Cattle
Red Currant
Red Peach Tomato
Redkloud Red Kidney Bean
Risser Sickle Pea
Robertson's Scarlet Keeper Carrot
Rochester Peach
Roy's Calais Flint Corn
Scott's Choice Dry Bush Bean
Sehsapsing (Delaware Blue) Corn
Seneca Blue Bear Dance Corn
Seneca Hominy Corn
Seneca Horn Potato
Seneca Pinto Bean
Seneca Sunflower
Shaker's Early Corn
Sheldon Pear
Sibley Pike's Peak Squash
Six Nations Bean
Six Nations Corn
Slappy Peach
Slaybaugh Special Peach
Smith's Cider Apples
Snowflake Potato
Somerset of Maine Apples
St. Valery Carrot
Stampede Jerusalem Artichoke
Starkey Apples
Steuben Yellow Eye Bean
Stone Apples
Stone Mason Cabbage
Stowell's Evergreen Corn
Succulent Hawthorn
Sulfur Bean
Summer Succotash Bean
Summer Sweet/Sidney Apples
Sungold Casaba Melon
Sweet Winesap Apples
Thomas Laxton Pea Bean
Thousand-to-one Bean
Tiffen Mennonite Tomato
Tom Thumb Yellow Popcorn
Tonawanda Calico Flint Corn
Tonawanda Seneca Dry Bush Bean
Trophy Tomato
True Lemon Cucumbers
True Red Cranberry Bush Bean
Tuscarora White Hominy Corn
Tyson Pear
Upright Maine Blueberry
Vermont Beauty Pear
Vermont Cranberry Bean
Vermont Yellow Flint Corn
Waldoboro Greenneck Rutabaga/Turnip
Warner Turban Squash
Waver's Mennonite Stuffing Sweet Pepper
Western Beauty Apples
Wilder Early Pear
Winningstadt Cabbage
Winter Succotash Bean
Winthrop Greening Apples
Worden Seckel Pear
Wyandotte Chickens
Yellow Globe Danvers Onion
Yellow Spanish Sweet Cherry
Zimmerman Pawpaw

Loss of many family farms,crops that take a large land area to profit return to produce and low prices due to cheap imported produce. Many reasons why a lot of older plants are not being planted any longer. Sadly they are usually tastier but cannot be shipped over long distances or have long enough shelf life qualities to make them profitable to produce. The fish are disappearing due to over fishing by local and corp. fisheries from all over the world. Pollution of the oceans and temp. changes have added even more pressure on populations. Heirloom seed saving groups are all in many cases that keep these varieties available to the home gardener.

I've heard of a few . . . Baldwin apples, Butternut squash, Seckel pears, but I'm definitely not sure I would be able to tell them apart in a blind taste test! The Fordhook things are all Burpee introductions, I think.

I would like to plant some Atlantic Cod this year - anyone got seeds?

I also think I need some of the "Lazy Housewife Beans"!

I've never heard of "Fox" Shagbark Hickory, but I have shagbarks lining my driveway.

I don't see how Butternut Squash could be endangered (unless that's a specific variety) - it's a Thanksgiving staple!

I also think that many aren't being planted because there is such a huge selection available nowadays. Plus, the average-Joe-gardener is probably ignorant of varieties and buys from the store displays (Burpee, NK, etc.) which are of a limited selection.

Is Joe-the-gardener related to Joe-the-plumber and Joe-sixpack?

It's sad that we are losing all this food variety.
You all bring up good points.
People buy what is available to them, and unfortunately, it is sometimes only what they see at the big box stores.
I encourage everyone to devote some of their garden to some of the endangered varieties and share them.
I for one have several OP veggies that I could share. One on the list is Acme tomato. I have the De Giorgi Bros version from Iowa. I grew up in Iowa so it has a special place because of it's history. I know there is another variety that may or may not be the one listed. It's a great tomato.
We should all discover the history of what we are growing in our garden. It really adds to the value of what we enjoy as gardeners.

Seed swaps serve 2 purposes. They give us a whole new lot of seeds to try out, ( who doesn't like a new plant) and they help preserve plants for posterity. How's that for enabling? ;)


Carrie- I am sure there is "Joe' for everything. ;) The important thing is we all become a Joe that is important to humanity. ;)

Cyndie - excellent points. Do you know LarryR in Iowa?
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/2068/
I can't even grow a tomato yet - rabbits ate them all.

Carrie- I have not yet met Larry, but I have watched the world seed bank with interest. That's a great site. Will follow up.
I have a lot of tomato seeds if you want to start them again. They can even be winter sown. I always let a few volunteers come up in my garden.

My mother gave me an Earth box for Christmas with the stand and wheels, so the rabbits can't get at them! Sure I'll take some seeds - may I send you a SASBE? I didn't start them from seed last time - I got them from a guy at church who had extras, and this year Horseshoe says he will send me seedlings, but that's a long way for seedlings to travel!

Carrie, I will send some out to you. No postage needed. Tomatoes are really easy to start. As long as you don't keep them too wet.
Do you have a preference of types?

I like the kind that they used to have in Virginia in the 60s and 70s ^_^ Big, not blue or yellow, I like an acidy taste and a sandwich size (not cherry or plum). Whatever you have is fine, really. Last year we had Brandywine (?) and managed to save one or two from the rabbits, and I found them small and too sweet. But not from seed, of course!

THANK YOU, CYNDIE!

I have Wood's Famous Brimmer, which is a Virginia tomato, which I will send you.
I will pick out a second, since you can grow 2 tomatoes in an EB. Am I correct?

I think so . . . my first time.

The Acme Tomato had to have been taken care of by one Road Runner. Would love to have seen the VT Beauty Pear. (Hey - nice pear!) Lazy Housewife Bean? Think a man named that one? Then never got to touch the pear again? Bronx Seedless Grape has a nice ring. (Imagine Perry White saying that, instead of Great Caesar's Ghost) Sulfur Bean must be popular at cookouts.

This is too easy...

It is your first day back - tomorrow it gets harder. And Victor, don't touch that! LOL

Promises, promises...

How about Krispy Kreme Donuts?

Carrie--If the tomatoes are determinate, you could probably squeeze 3 plants into 1 Earthbox. I do not, at all, recommend planting anything that is going to vine, or form a "bush"...like zuchini, squash, that sort of thing...what tends to happen is the main stem grows out to the edge of the EB, and the weight from the rest of the plant eventually will snap the main stem. I purchased the netted growing trellis, beans do great, as do cucumbers if you train them early enough. I planted 3 determinate 'maters last year and they did exceedingly well. So far I've planted beans, peas, zuchini's (will never plant them in an EB again), acorn squash (same as the zucchini), and sweet peppers. The sweet peppers (I planted green, red, black, chocalate, and the white varieties) grew extremely well, and fruited like crazy! I'm going to plant peppers in all 4 EB's this year! They did that well.

How about peanut sticks in general? Is anyone else having this problem...in regard to my favorite donut being taken off almost all DD, and KK menus...most of the donut chains around here have the crueler type of peanut donut, but no more PENUT STICKS...egad...what's a guy to do?

lol

Dear Cat,
The Tower Hill Botanic Garden in West Boylston, MA maintains an orchard of 119 heirloom variety apples. I bet the varieties you list are there.
Wisley Gardens in England has 400 apple heirloom varieties some of which are many hundreds of years old. I bet there are other orchards which do the same thing here.
We have an heirloom vegetable forum here at DG. Don't know if there is something similar for fruit.
Martha

This message was edited Feb 4, 2009 8:15 AM