When you think of tomatoes you think of big, ripe, juicy red fruits, right? Perfect in salads and on sandwiches, tomatoes are high in vitamin C, with an average tomato providing 32 percent of the recommended daily allowance. They are also high in vitamin A, giving us about 25 percent of what we need each day. The average tomato only has about 35 calories, too. It is a nearly perfect food. Eaten raw or cooked, the tomato is by far a favorite for most of us.
I always tell others, if you dont like tomatoes you just havent had a real one. For those of you that garden, you know what I am talking about.
The botanical name for the tomato is lycopersicon lycopersicum and means wolf peach. First cultivated in 700 AD by the Aztecs and Incas, the tomato eventually made its way to Europe and eventually came back to the Americas by way of the Caribbean. It was not an overnight sensation, however.
Today we can scarcely imagine life without the big, ripe, juicy red fruits. For a moment, consider that not all tomatoes are red. The red comes from lycopene, a substance that has been proven to be really good for us. Tomatoes of different colors do not have as much lycopene but they are still very nutritious and should be eaten in copious amounts next summer.
Green sausage (yes, even vegetarians can enjoy this because its not a sausage at all) is a tomato that grows on short bushy plants. The fruit is yellow with green vertical stripes. Green sausage tomatoes have firm flesh and a rich, sweet flavor that makes them excellent for sauce. These three-inch-long tomatoes dont need to be staked and can even be grown in containers.
Gold Medal is a yellow tomato, streaked with red, and contains very little acid. This beefsteak variety has thin skin with a luscious, sweet, well-balanced flavor and can weigh in at 1 1/2 pounds. Unlike most tomatoes, Gold Medal can last for weeks when harvested ripe.
The Plum Lemon has an interesting past, as it was collected from an elderly Russian man at a market during the 1991 coup; it was originally from the St. Petersburg area. The two-inch fruits have a vivid yellow skin and a mild lemony flesh. The Plum Lemon is great in salads, sauces and makes wonderful yellow ketchup.
The Juanne Flamme is an heirloom variety from France. This early variety is apricot colored inside and out and retains its color when roasted, dried or made into sauce. The flavor is full-bodied and it is extremely decorative.
With more than 10,000 varieties of tomatoes to choose from you are certain to find some that suit your taste. Growing the more unusual varieties is fun and ensures they will be around for future generations to enjoy.
I know tomato season is a ways off, but I havent had a good tomato since October. Im a tomato snob and refuse to buy those tomato-like fruits sold at stores. I will gladly wait for the real thing from my own garden and the gardens of others willing to share before I allow the ones picked green and ripened with gas to invade my kitchen and turn me into a tomato-hater.
Youll be hard-pressed to find unusual varieties in the form of seedlings and will have to starts seeds yourself indoors about six weeks before the frost date of mid-May. In our region that means around the end of March. Hey, its only two months away, right? Its never too early to talk tomatoes.
