My wife will not eat any raw tomatoes unless they are in a BLT.
I grow San Marzanos for making pasta sauce, and vary the variety for salads and BLTs. For the last few years they’ve been Early Girl or Easy Girl.
“Love” is a strong word. I like tomatoes in a salad or on a sandwich more than I like them alone. But I like raw ones much better than stewed tomatoes.
And I mainly eat the cheap grocery store ones or homegrown ones. I’m not a connoisseur.
Omg, my favorite sandwich!
I used to buy heirloom tomatoes from a woman at the farmers’ market, however she hasn’t been there for the last few years. One variety she sold that was amazing raw were large, lumpy and dark green when ripe. Very meaty, mild but with a strong tomato-ey flavour. Very good with slices of sharp cheese. Does this variety ring a bell for anyone? I’m experimenting with different heirloom varieties and would love to find this one.
My brother doesn’t like raw home grown tomatoes. He prefers the supermarket ones. I don’t understand why anyone would prefer flavorless over flavorful, but he seems to have strange taste buds.
I love them, all varieties . . . with some thinly sliced onions, salt, pepper, and a little dill.
I used to love tomatoes raw, but then I tasted a tomato that was so amazing that it ruined all other tomatoes for me. Now I find them okay, but nothing special.
My wife grows beefsteak tomatoes every year, and every year I devour them.
Take one out of the fridge, make some hearty thick slices, then I sprinkle on some Mrs Dash garlic & herb, and for just a little kick, sprinkle on some chili powder.
Or take one slice, along with some red onion, on a bagel with cream cheese.
Then of course, we also dice them up with cucumber and onion, and toss them Italian dressing. Makes a great summer salad.
For years I grew my own, and I loved those fat juicy beefsteak tomatoes. My grandparents always grew “Big Boys” and theirs were always delicious too. I could eat them every single day of my life and never get bored.
Now I am lucky if I find good ones at local farmer’s markets. They’re okay but nothing like what I grew myself.
That’s because there are a lot of people who don’t like raw tomatoes. I can think of at least a half dozen of my acquaintances right off the top of my head.
I grow Super Sweet 100s and Cherokee Purples (among others) every year. I may give up on the latter, because I think the yield sucks. After 8 years of growing heirloom varieties, I may be going back to Better Boys.
Me, for one. I find raw tomatoes revolting. The slimy fluid that makes up the interior is disgusting to me.
I love tomato sauces, but raw tomato? No. (I can eat chunky salsa, but even that isn’t real pleasant for me.)
My mother quit making me try to eat them when, at 12 or so, she required me to eat a cherry tomato at the dinner table, only to have me vomit all over my plate.
Right off the vine, sliced thick, with some salt. I miss those days.
It’s cruel of the OP to start this thread now, when tomatoes won’t be available for another seven or eight months.
One of my earliest memories is being out in what they called the picking garden with my grandmother while she gathered the ripe veggies and fruit to use in that day’s meals. Fresh, warm tomatoes, eaten like applies, right off the vine; green beans snapped off the vine and popped in your mouth, their fuzzy coats tickling your tongue; and the raspberries, oh lord, the raspberries…just a little piece of Midwestern nirvana.
During the height of the recent ‘great recession’, an enterprising pair of brothers in my then community along Lake Michigan, would drive their trucks down to Florida and bring back fresh off the vine ripe tomatoes which they would sell in our farmer’s market on Saturdays. Once word spread, people would line up at 6 am outside the market for a chance to get some of these tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes a mere 18-hours from the field in the dead of a February winter were just that amazing.
Best sandwich:
Rustic Italian bread, sliced not too thin, toasted
Crisp, thick-sliced bacon sprinkled with cracked pepper
Thick slices of garden tomatoes
Miracle Whip (so sue me! it contrasts nicely with the salty bacon)
But I can’t have one of these until late July at least
I was thinking just this. And did someone up thread mention removing tomatoes from the fridge to eat. WTF are they doing in the fridge? Blasphemer! Never store tomatoes in the fridge, kills the flavor.
Best I can do at this time of year is see if the local supermarket has any decent looking "ugly ripe"s in stock. During the summer, there are always farmers parked on the roadside or in parking lots selling fresh tomatoes. Yum. Seriously, yum. I’ve been know to eat one as I drive, usually with the predictable ruined shirt to show for it.
My favorite tomato based snack: slices of french bread, about an inch think, toasted. Thin slice of mozzarella, slice of homegrown tomato, extra virgin olive oil, salt and ground pepper. I’ve been know to eat about a dozen of these and call it a meal.
Has anyone else tried Campari tomatoes? I think they’re available year round, and I find them nearly as tasty as a good heirloom.
Buy local tomato.
Slice tomato.
Sprinkle truffle salt over tomato.
Eat tomato.
Pass out from goodness.
Exactly why I devote hours and hours to canning fresh tomatoes every year – the flavor is preserved. I put up a minimum of 50 quarts for just me every year, and that’s not counting all the fresh ones I eat during the season or the dehydrated ones. I never refrigerate or freeze them. Quelle horreur!! 
Garden fresh, ripe tomatoes are absolutely wonderful. This is certainly one item where store bought can turn you off, if you’ve never had the real thing. A neighbor gave me some home grown cherry tomatoes last year, and they were the kind with the thinnest skin you could imagine (couldn’t ship them for commercial use) and they were out of this world. I couldn’t stop eating them. Almost as good as bing cherries in the summer!