The burgeoning green market scene in New York has made heirloom vegetables an inexpensive home staple instead of an unattainable luxury. More than just a phase, I personally have come to appreciate these provisions for stimulating my mental taste buds to recall the flavours that pervaded my youth. Heirloom fruits and vegetables are ones created from seeds that were cultivated during earlier periods of human history and are not used in large scale modern agricultural processes. They are typically chemically free, though the farmer may use organic pesticides in the cultivation process. 

Being raised in a city there wasn't much space to grow and cultivate, but my parents, raised on farms always found a way. The circumference of our garden was home to petite, sweet, juicy red strawberries. I remember running outside to peek underneath the rich dark leaves, yelping with glee at the small red treasure the plant yielded. The strawberries were small but sweet and tasted undeniably like strawberry. Sadly most of what is seen in the stores today are flavourless gargantuan sized caricature's of their ancestors.  Today heirloom strawberries also don't often reach the retail market, although they do exist. Nevertheless the strawberry you get at a farmer's market will taste infinitely better than the ones at your local supermarket. 