Mary Ann's Blog
A Tomato Is A Tomato
August 3, 2012
For the life of me I do not understand the avoidance of purchasing fresh farm grown tomatoes that are “not exactly round.” Are we so conditioned by the giant agribusiness conglomerates that dictate what our food should look like? Perfect specimens of equal size and color?
So many times I have observed this at farmers markets where a variety of heirloom tomatoes are on display from gorgeous pinky-purple Brandywine to the ridged Costoluto Genovese. They do not sell nearly as well as the round beef steak varieties because we have been conditioned to think that all tomatoes must be red and round. We are reluctant to try anything that is outside the realm of this description and that is too bad because we are missing out on some sensational tasting, real tomatoes that are only going to be around for a short time.
Right now my garden is about to give way to many heirlooms and cherry types including Sun Gold one of my very favorite yellow cherry tomatoes. Funny, yellow cherry tomatoes don’t move as quickly as their bright red cousins but I can tell you for certain that they ARE better tasting.
Plum tomatoes for making tomato sauce need to be plump and meaty with few seeds. My favorite is Redorta, an elongated, heavy in the hand plum tomato that cooks up into a delicious tomato sauce.
The calendar says July but I don’t think some people have noticed as they continue to buy store variety, cardboard tasting, genetically engineered so called tomatoes.
Great tomato recipes at ciaoitalia.com.
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