But our 12,000-year-old seed-saving heritage has come under attack in recent decades.
I heard similar narratives around the preservation of heritage seed varieties: the duty of these seeds is to sprout every spring, and the duty of humans is to plant them.
As heritage seed sales have outpaced the rest of Burpee's seed line, Mr. Ball, 59, has added more varieties to his catalog and Web site.
The concerns around the disuse of fish and heritage seed varieties stem back to cultural stories about ungrateful humans who have their food sources taken from them and who only regain them after learning lessons about maintaining ceremonies and traditional roles.
The breads — farro, einkorn, kamut — chalked on the board make the place sound more like a heritage seed bank than a boulangerie.
Some good news: big suppliers do offer some heritage seeds, because ordinary gardeners want them.
Eventually, they decided to grow it themselves from heritage seeds.
Johnny's Selected Seeds, which grows and preserves rare heritage seeds, is one of the few sources for it.
The company's business model is based on privatizing life, privatizing our genetic heritage (seeds), and poisoning the Earth.
In an eerie New York connection to the Open that Tiger is favored to win on the Black Course at Bethpage State Park, the seeds of his golf heritage were planted by his father, Earl, on two scruffy city courses, Dyker Beach and LaTourette, as well as on the Black Course itself.
"It results from the fact that people want to grow a variety of flavours that are good for the garden," says Chris Smith, co-owner of Pennard Plants, which specialises in heritage vegetable seeds.
