Plot Against World Champion Seen : Greenhouse Leek-Sneaks Plunder the Prize Winners

HOUGHTON-LE-SPRING, England —  Foul play is afoot in the world of championship leek-growing.

Leek rustlers are raiding greenhouses for prize-winning stock, and a plot seems to have been hatched to knock out the world champion.

In England’s northeast corner, leek-growing is a serious pursuit, with its own world series contest, stud market and bigger and bigger prizes.

Eating them hardly comes into it. Leeks, with a flavor like mild onions, make tasty soups and pies. But it’s size that counts in the competition.

‘Mindless Scum’

The skulduggery engendered by the leek’s break into the big time goes against the grain of the Geordies, as these hard-working northeasterners are known.

“It’s letting down the English race,” said Bill Clyde, a judge at leek competitions.

“The mindless scum we know as the leek thief has struck again,” reported the newsletter of the National Pot Leek Society after raiders cleaned out Joe Jones’ greenhouse on two successive nights before he was to compete in the society’s annual championship last September.

Local breweries and fertilizer firms sponsor leek contests with prizes of up to 1,200 pounds ($1,900), so the temptation to resort to foul means is strong.

And Jones is the Bjorn Borg of the leek circuit, consistently frustrating competitors with the breed he developed in 1979, which bears his name.

His 1986 presentation at the World Championship at Ashington, north of Newcastle, totaled a record 273.12 cubic inches for a “stand”--or display trio--of pot leeks. Leek experts reckon that it was only a matter of time before 72-year-old Jones would break the 300-cubic-inch barrier, leekdom’s equivalent of the four-minute mile.

After the raid on Jones’ greenhouse, alarming rumors circulated among the coal-mining towns and villages where leek-growing flourishes. Jones, it was whispered, was so disgusted that he was throwing in the trowel.

But as the first leek fronds were peeking out of their pots on a recent spring day, Jones told a reporter that he is thinking about a comeback in 1988.

He said that by taking his whole crop, the thieves were trying to bump him off the competitive circuit for good.

“There’s quite a lot of money now in leek shows,” Jones said, “and there’s a lot of people out of work and a lot of poverty. And probably these chaps think, ‘Well, if I can get some leeks and win 500 to 600 pounds ($800-$960), it’ll help me and my family.’ ”

A retired railroad signalman, Jones has been growing leeks since 1949.

“People from the south probably don’t understand it, but it’s like a religion up here,” he said. “The interest in leek-growing has always been here, and the sponsorship has made it more intense. It’s lost a little bit of its honesty.”

Leeks date back to the ancient Egyptians and have always been popular in Europe. The Roman emperor Nero was derisively nicknamed “Porrophagus,” after the leek’s Latin name, Allium porrum, because of Nero’s habit of eating leeks to clear his throat.

The Welsh made it their national symbol, and Shakespeare made high comedy in “Henry V” of the braggard Pistol being forced to eat a leek, sputtering: “By this leek, I will most horribly revenge.”

Today it is the English counties of Durham and Northumberland where the leek is glorified, although no one knows why.

“It’s always been a mystery,” Jones said. “Many experienced leek-growers will say, ‘Why the devil did we start with the leek? Surely there’s something more interesting.’ ”

Nevertheless, the finer points of growing leeks are discussed over pints of ale in leek clubs.

The National Pot Leek Society, based in Houghton-le-Spring near Sunderland, claims a membership of 1,000 growers and 60 affiliated clubs. Its annual championship attracts more than 200 entrants. It is launching a four-year world series with a 1,000-pound ($1,600) first prize.

Ernie Lightfoot, chairman of the National Pot Leek Society, said that his motto is: “If you can show it, I’ll grow it.” But while he dabbles in tomatoes, celery, carrots and onions, leeks are his passion.

“It makes your hair stand up when you see a good stand of leek,” Lightfoot said.

“They look so beautiful on show,” Clyde said, “that lovely green flag (foliage), spreading out from that white blanched barrel (base), lying on a bed of black silk, lit up by the spotlight.

“And you’re looking for three leeks, perfectly shaped, all equal like peas in a pod. It takes a lot of doing. You have to work hard at it.”

Growers wouldn’t dream of eating a prize winner.

“That,” Jones said, “would be sacrilege.”