heirloom varieties

Danielle Marvit, who could fairly be called the tomato maven of Pittsburgh, didn’t hesitate when asked to list her favorites among the dozens of tomato varieties sold as seedlings by Garden Dreams, an urban farm set between vacant Victorian-era houses in Wilkinsburg, Pa.

t's hard to find good greasy beans, says Travis Milton, who knows the problem firsthand. The chef plans to sow 10 acres of foods that populate the cookbook of central Appalachia -- greasy beans and other heirloom beans, cowpeas, creasy greens, Candy Roaster squash, goosefoot and blackberries, to name a few -- for his soon-to-open restaurant in Bristol, Tennessee, reports the Washington Post.

Amigo Bob Cantisano, dreadlocks to his waist and clad year-round in shorts and tie-dyed shirts, hunts in the remnants of homesteads, small orchards and stagecoach stops dating from the Gold Rush days in northern California. Rather than mineral wealth, the treasure he seeks "are trees, the fruits and nuts and ornamentals planted ... in the late 1800s," said public broadcaster KQED in a story produced in partnership with FERN.

The decades-old snack popcorn is being retooled for the age of "craft" foods, says the New York Times, noting that overall sales of popcorn are climbing; there are no reliable figures on growth of sales for artisanal popcorn.