Veg Invention: The stories of new kinds of fruit and vegetables

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2021

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Seed breeders spend whole careers in search of that perfect fruit or vegetable, and some even come up with their own completely new designs. Think Tenderstem, Cotton Candy grapes, or a new type of cauliflower that's just started being sold: Caulishoots.

In this programme, Leyla Kazim finds out what goes into creating these new varieties, what breeders, growers and supermarket buyers are looking for, and how they end up on our plates.

She meets veg-inventor Jamie Claxton from Tozer Seeds, who came up with the Kalette (a cross between a brussel sprout and kale), while Ross Geach from Padstow Kitchen Garden explains why he enjoys experimenting with new varieties and getting them introduced to diners at Jack Stein's restaurants.

Leyla also looks to the US where chef Dan Barber has set up an organic seed company to bring breeders, chefs and farmers together to design new, better varieties. While Lane Selman in Portland, Oregon tells us how her 'Culinary Breeding Network' is working to both give breeders more feedback, and is educating the public about the new types of fruit and veg on offer.

Presented by Leyla Kazim Produced in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

Transcript

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0:48.0	We hope you enjoy it. Okay, well this is the first for my kitchen. I have just pulled out of the oven, a tray of freshly
1:01.6	of freshly roasted vegetables. You can probably hear them still
1:06.7	sizzling a bit, but they're a vegetable that I've actually never seen before, although they do look quite familiar, and it's called
1:16.4	a collisuit, which is the brand name for it rather than the variety. Now the reason I haven't seen these collie shoots before
1:26.0	is because they actually only came out in August this year
1:29.9	and I've got them in my kitchen today because this week's episode is all about where new varieties come from,
1:37.2	how they are developed and brought to market, and what even makes a good new vegetable. And what it looks like on the plate, the color, the texture,
1:43.4	I mean obviously it's going to be down to taste really
1:47.2	and it's going to be down to what it looks like on the plate.
1:50.5	So the color, the texture, the the taste there's about 30 or 40 different
1:54.6	things you have to look at even down to the shape of the leaf and whether the
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