Besides me? Few tastes are better to me than a really high-quality tomato, eaten fresh sliced (or by hand) without accompaniment.
Most supermarket tomatoes are very boring. The best I’ve ever had were from farmers’ markets, but I find they are really, really hit and miss – sometimes they’re great (and inevitably I forget the variety), and sometimes they’re not very good at all.
Lately I’ve been getting some of the special and more expensive tomatoes at the supermarket – kumato and campari. Kumato has been disappointing me occasionally, but campari almost never does. A very, very tomato-ey (and in a very good way) tomato – I typically eat two of the little campari ones every day after work.
So what kinds of tomatoes do you love? What are the tastiest varieties at the farmers’ markets?
Count me as a tomato lover as well, both raw and cooked. The tasty balance of sweetness and acidity is something I never tire of. Pizza and pasta sauces must be tomato based. None of this cream or pesto for me. I know some people can’t stand raw tomatoes because of the tartness and/or texture but something as simple as a little bit of EVO and salt can do so much to enhance its taste.
One varietal I miss and can’t get in Japan is Brandywine. It was used in a Caprese salad dressed with nothing more than EVO and some kind of smoked salt. The fresh Buffalo mozzarella was fine, but that tomato was so bursting with flavours that I preferred to eat it on its own. But I didn’t want to look greedy by just leaving the mozzarella and basil behind:p
We grew some Purple Cherokees last year and they were truly tomatoes. Wow. And they went right on yielding until it was really really hot, here in Texas, which surprised me. To me a fresh tomato, preferably still warm and a little dusty from the vine, is one of life’s best flavors.
I buy the mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes in the supermarket and they tend to be very good.
Love tomatoes raw or cooked!
For raw I prefer the less acidic ones - Mr Stripey (green striped), yellow and purple plum cherry tomatoes and Yellow Taxi are all ones I grew last year. Along with the standard beefsteak and Roma tomatoes.
I eat the cherry tomatoes like candy right off the vine.
I love, love, love them. As a kid, I remember eating tomatoes from my grandpa’s garden fresh off the vine with salt and pepper. Now, I’ll happily eat cherry tomatoes like grapes.
One of the best smells is the wonderfully planty smell of a fresh tomato.
Around here the best tomatoes are dry-farmed Early Girls. They’re available for only a few months a year, but they’re worth the wait. I like them more than all the fancy heirlooms. You can get them at farmers markets and produce markets - regular grocery stores don’t carry them.
Dry farming is just what it sounds like - the farmer doesn’t water the plants much, resulting in fruit that are smaller but more intensely flavored. Vineyards do something similar with wine grapes. I’ve never seen dry farming applied to any variety of tomato other than Early Girl. I think they use that variety because Early Girls are tough enough to stand up to the treatment.
The only drawbacks to dry-farmed Early Girls is their small size and thick skins. I’m willing to put up with these problems for a superior-tasting tomato.
Crazy about 'em and devote a lot of time each year to growing hundreds, both for fresh consumption, dehydrating and canning. Is there anything finer in the realm of gardening than the first annual BLT? I make mine from lettuce and tomatoes I grow, bacon I raise and bread I make from scratch – sourdough, naturally.
Favorite varieties are all heirlooms except for Sungold cherry tomatoes, which are too fantastic to resist – even if they are hybrids.
Sunset Red Horizon
Stupice
Zogola
Purple Russian
Oxheart
Mrs. Maxwell’s Big Italian
Monkey Ass (probably shouldn’t have listed these last two consecutively)
Golden Pineapple
Anna Russian
I’ll start my seeds for this season in just 7 weeks!!!
Basics around here are Big Boy, Better Boy, and Early Girl. I’ve tried others but keep coming back to these to plant. They do well in this environment, produce fruit for most of the growing season and taste amazing. Unfortunately it is only from around July through September that I can grow my own. I don’t ask questions at the farmer’s market… if they have good produce I’ll be back the next week regardless of the name… this stretches the season a bit. This time of the year I stick to plum/roma for most of my raw tomato needs… canned (Red Gold) for others.
