Having my vitamin C just got a whole lot more interesting.

Mmm mmm. I have been relishing heirloom tomatoes for the last few weeks brought to the local farmers' markets from Orange. They are excellent just bitten into, or if you want to serve them up fancy, all they need is some salt, pepper and a splash of olive oil. In the pickie below 4 varieties ready for the eating, slavering from left to right they are green zebra (a dark green with yellow ribs), black Russian ( a deep browny red), one i was told was called a queen lime but I think is actually a yellow valencia, and oxheart.

Ah, but what makes a tomato an heirloom, you ask. Well, the bottom line is that they have to be open-pollinated, that is, they can't be hybrids. Past that, there are additional interpretations. Some go by the age of the cultivar, with some going for seeds that have to be over 100 years old, others saying 50, and others picking 1945 being the rough date for widespread use of hybrids in industrial agriculture. Others say a true heirloom is a cultivar that has been nurtured, selected, and handed down from one family member over many generations. I got this info from http://www.greenmarketrecipes.com/tomatoes/types_of_heirloom_tomatoes.htm where you can also see pics of the whole fruit and many more varieties.