For some unknown reason my grocery store has started to carry these odd creatures. There’s a big box full of them - red, orange, yellow, green, purple - and in a huge variety of shapes. They seem to have a high incidence of birth defects, too - a lot of siamese twins, and many are pregnant with one tomato growing inside (and partly outside) another.
I’ve heard a lot about heirloom tomatos, and I’d like to try to use them, but I don’t have the first idea about what to make with them. Are they good raw? Are they simply a replacement for a regular Big-Boy? Anyone have any ideas?
I’ve eaten heirloom tomatos raw. In salads–like the classic caprese salad–fresh mozzarella, tomato, a little basil, a little olive oil. Or normal tossed salads. Or as a topping on a veggie pizza–cold homemade take to potluck style pizza (crescent roll crust, cream cheese layer (with Good Seasons Italian Dressing mix and a bit of mayo, and then topped with whatever veggies you desire, multiple colors are fun, so heirloom tomatos were extra fun).
In my experience, the heirloom tomatos don’t keep as well as the usual little grape or cherry tomatos I buy at the grocery store. And some of them may taste less tomato-y or have less acid in them, but I don’t promise.
And if you cut them up like all my recipes above do, siamese twins and the like don’t really matter.
Generally they taste much, much better than hybrid tomatoes, though they may not last as long after picking. Use them sliced, in salads, for salsa, etc.
Don’t be scared of the heirloom varieties! They taste just as good and usually much better than hybrid variety tomatoes. From what I understand, the hybrids were bred more for selling to market…uniform color, size, etc. while the heirlooms are more like a “pure breed” tomato.
Cherokee Purple tomatoes are my fave heirloom…they have fabulous taste and texture.
Now if the ground will just dry out so I can plant mine!!!
Every variety has it’s own differences. There’s nothing special about their use. Use them like you use any tomato, just be ready to find they taste or look different when you use a different variety. They seem to have lumped all tomatoes not of commercial varieties in the last ten years into the heirloom category. Many of the old varieties don’t have the disease resistance of the ones bred in the last thirty years, but that’s not a concern if you’re buying tomatoes. Faint cracks or scaring of the skin is ok. Cracks into the soft juicy meat is not safe, because bacteria gets inside and multiplies. Many of the heirloom varieties were bred for market a hundred years ago.
Strictly speaking, heirlooms are varieties that date back at least 50 (some say 100) years. A lot have been introduced in the U.S. over the last 10-20 years from Eastern Europe (after the fall of the Soviet Union).
Two other reasons for using heirloom tomatoes, besides taste, are:
promoting diversity of crops, and encouraging use of open pollinated seed. This gets us away from relying on a few sources of hybrid seed, and diversifying the genetic pool. I’m not against hybridization at all, that’s done to improve plants, and, for large scale production, important to have a big harvest available to market. But, it’s sure nice to have all the older varieties available , too.
The heirloom producers tend to be small scale farmers, who grow out these varieties with the techniques necessary, not in a large commercial sense. Yep, those 'maters may be lumpy, bumpy, and not perfectly round, which is why they don’t make it in the large scale sense. But,in buying them, you are supporting local farmers, always a good thing.
Does anyone have recommendations for heirloom/non-hybrid tomatoes to plant? What about availability of “saplings”? (My gardening vocab has abandoned me.) Where should you look for them?
That’s how I take it, but the grocery stores are lumping them all together. Anything that has been out of all the major seed catalogs I feel is heirloom, because it was the seed banks and gardeners that saved them. Many of the Russian tomatoes have arrived in the USA and there is even a difference in the tomatoes depending on who you get the seeds from. Many off the black ones are from Russia. I can’t say as the black appeal to me visually when cut, and they seem to be mainly the beefsteak form which has all those convolutions. I wonder how many named varieties exist.
Around here your limited by the shorter season. You have to try hard to get longer maturing varieties to produce something. I usually have to bring most of those in green to to ripen in the fall. I have tomatoes until about December though. I always plant some short season varieties developed for states like Wisconsin. Cutting off a month or more on maturity is a big deal, but they are all determinate, so they stop growing at some point. OK the meandering are done.
Purl, your local farmer’s market is a good place to look for heirloom tomato seedlings. That’s where the local growers will be selling, with tips on the best one’s for the local conditions. You can also contact your county agricultural extension agent for a list of local growers.
I’m in the South, so the tomatoes I grow have a long season. In preview, I see Harmonious Discord’s post about more Northern varieties. Don’t be shy about asking your county Ag agents about this; it’s a state funded job to do just that. By asking questions about lesser known, (but, up and coming in this case), you are helping them to get with current trends.
Well, there’s always that old standby, Brandywine, which is a truly awesome heirloom. But everyone grows these already. My local OSH carries them as small plants.
I like a couple of the striped ones, like Mr. Stripey, nice mellow taste.
There’s also a yellow tomato I’m fond of, but the name is escaping me.
Ah, but the flavor! I strongly favour the black varieties, of which the Purple Cherokees are the most ubiquitous, but my favorites are the Black Crims that I can occasionally get at the local Farmer’s Market.
I didn’t even think of asking the ag extension guy for advice! We ask him so many questions about farming stuff that he didn’t pop into my head for gardening questions. Good ol’ Jim – how could I forget him?
Unfortunately, the closest farmer’s market with such exotic things as heirloom tomatoes is an hour away, so we probably won’t make it there before the planting window is closed.
squeegee, I know I’ve seen the yellow stripey ones at nurseries around here.
I read somewhere that there are around 3000 known varieties of tomatoes. I’ve always wanted to go to the nearby Carmel TomatoFest and tomato out on all the varieties. I’d probably die from tomato overdose, but I’d die happy.
Something you may want is Wayahead a 55 day and there are other’s. Brandywine, and Rutger’s you may find in the greenhouses. I have to buy Oxheart seed because nobody offers them as plants anymore, but they do look like a heart in your hand, and are meaty.
I recommend breaking up varieties, because disease resistance is lower on the older cultivars. Alternating varieties can stop a disease from wiping out all of one variety. Planting multiple varieties can insure that regardless of the conditions that year, something will do well. If you need to save seed, because you won’t be able to buy clean seeds, remember that varieties will cross pollinate.
I’ve grown and eaten a lot of “heirloom” tomato varieties as well as modern garden hybrids.
Some of the old types do have good taste (squeegee’s recommendations of “Brandywine” and “Mr. Stripey” are seconded), but there are recent introductions that I think can match heirlooms’ taste, plus have much better disease resistance. “Celebrity” is one example, but in general most hybrids when grown well and vine-ripened outdoors will be fine.
I’m pleased to see supermarkets branching out into different types of tomatoes, including “heirlooms” (a real catch-all term). The key again is knowing if these tomatoes really are grown locally and shipped when approaching ripeness.
The best taste in my opinion is offered by cherry and grape tomato types. There are some really good ones sold in supermarkets now.
I saw some heirloom tomatoes in my store and most of them didn’t look very good. There were a lot that had mold and other defects. I know they aren’t going to be as consistent as standard tomatoes, but I can’t imagine why they’d put a moldy one out for sale.
I’ve gone to the Heirloom Tomato Festival up here in Santa Rosa for the past 4 years.
It’s a blast. I’ve only ever been able to taste about 20 varieties each year though. After eating so many tomato based products and tomatoes, my mouth just couldn’t take the acidity anymore.
Still, I was very, very happy and it is a great event. I’ve probably tasted close to 100 varieties now and I don’t recall ever tasting one I didn’t like.
I’ve got a few Heirloom Tomato Cookbooks sitting around the house.
It’s a nice cookbook for the tomato lover. It’s got some nice, yet simple recipes, some wine pairings, and some really pretty pictures too.
Lamar, if you’d like one, PM or email me an address and I’d be happy to ship it to you.
