Fordhook Giant

Fordhook Giant is a leaf beet, not a root beet: it is the benchmark green-and-white Swiss chard, and Fedco flatly calls it the standard variety of the crop. Fedco dates its introduction to 1934 by Burpee, the name coming from Fordhook Farm, the company's research grounds; Territorial describes it as a garden staple since the 1920s, so it has been in commerce for roughly a century. It is open-pollinated, so seed can be saved and it has never been displaced by a hybrid in the way most brassicas have. Its reputation rests on bulk rather than novelty, since it makes an unusually large plant with midribs broad enough to cook as a separate vegetable from the leaf blade. Anyone comparing chards should treat this as the yardstick that coloured varieties such as the silverbeet types are measured against.