Now imagine how awesome that would be in a lovely purple potato.
There's some great purple foods out there. Potatoes, carrots, broccoli, corn, tomatoes, apples, cabbage, lettuce, even some jerusalem artichokes can come with some purple varigation.
One of the reasons I get excited about these foods is that they were once fairly common in our markets. Keeping these varieties going not only gives us some differences to put on our plate but also supports biodiversity. As far as the UK is concerned, we suffered some pretty serious loss of varieties during the war eras and that has been compounded by the march of homogenisation driven by supermarkets. Take for instance the humble pig. At one point we were home to nearly forty breeds of pig, each with their own characteristics and favouring different environments and farming styles. Government directives during the second world war, as well intentioned as they may have been, practically wiped out all but three.
As a result of all thise we've lost a lot of our heritage, exposed ourselves to a higher vulnerability of agricultural disease and made our food more boring. The main breed of pig to come out of the war era changes was the Landrace, favoured for speed of growth and temperament rather than flavour. Alas the flavour is pretty bland in comparison to a lot of the lost breeds. Post war efforts to bring back alternative and rare breeds have faltered until recently.
So there you have it. Biodiversity is tasty, fun and good for the environment. Do your bit and eat something a bit funny looking this week.
