In 1990, Craig LeHoullier — a pharmaceutical scientist in Raleigh, North Carolina and one of America's most devoted heirloom tomato advocates — received a plain envelope in the mail. Inside: seeds, and a handwritten note from John Green of Sevierville, Tennessee.
"Here is a tomato that originated with the Cherokee Indians over 100 years ago. I hope you like it."
Green had gotten the seeds from a woman named Jean Greenlee in Rutledge, Tennessee. The family story: her grandfather received them from the Cherokee people, sometime in the 1800s. Whether that oral history is exact or approximate, the variety is genuinely old and genuinely distinct — nothing else looks or tastes like it.
LeHoullier was skeptical. He planted them anyway.
What grew was, in his own words, the color of "a bad leg bruise." Then he tasted one — and everything changed. He sent seeds to Jeff McCormack at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, who listed them in their 1993 catalog. That was the first time Cherokee Purple appeared in print.
From there, it spread — through seed savers, farmers' markets, and kitchen tables across the country. A tomato that spent most of its known history one seed packet away from vanishing is now one of the most recognized heirlooms in the world. The Slow Food Foundation added it to the Ark of Taste, their catalog of heritage foods worth preserving.
