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The Best Varieties for Tomato Lovers

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By Tim Stark Based on my own experience, what the chefs tell me, and the opinions of experts in other regions, I compiled this list of the tomatoes guaranteed to give any salad or sandwich a slice of summer in every bite. BLACK,... See more » By Tim Stark Based on my own experience, what the chefs tell me, and the opinions of experts in other regions, I compiled this list of the tomatoes guaranteed to give any salad or sandwich a slice of summer in every bite. BLACK, PURPLE, OR BROWN The darker the tomato, the more acidic the flavor, I've found. 'Cherokee Purple' is winey and sweet. It's consistently the most popular tomato at my market stand. Tomato guru Craig LeHoullier, who grows 100 tomato varieties each year in Raleigh, North Carolina, calls 'Cherokee Purple' the perfect tomato because of its lush, intense, well-balanced flavor and its natural tolerance to disease in his garden, where fusarium wilt is a perennial problem. For a big, main-season heirloom, 'Cherokee Purple' produces early, heavy loads of fruit. I've often thought when slicing open a dead-ripe 'Cherokee Purple' that the term beefsteak must have been coined to describe the dusky, luscious purple and green marbled flesh of this tomato. 'Black Sea Man' ripens earlier and tastes almost as good as 'Cherokee Purple'. 'Black from Tula' and 'Black Prince' have a place in the garden of Bill Minkey of Darien, Wisconsin, who offers about 700 varieties of tomato seed through the Seed Savers Exchange. 'Black Prince' bears heavy clusters of greenish brown tennis ball-size fruit that is chock-full of juice. Craig recommends the taste of 'Black from Tula' but has found it to be less tolerant of disease than 'Cherokee Purple'. In my experience, 'Black Prince' tastes great and produces well but its juiciness and fragility make it susceptible to cracking in rainy weather. 'Ananas Noire' and 'Sara Black' are lesser-known but still noteworthy winners in Bill's Wisconsin plot for their flavor and productivity. WHITE These varieties seem to be at the other end of the acidity spectrum from the dark ones. Actually, white tomatoes are not less acidic; their sweetness tends to mask the acidity. 'White Wonder' has a mild flavor that is an ideal counterpoint to the big tomato flavor of the darker tomatoes in a salad, though some gardeners find 'White Wonder' too bland. 'White Queen' is a richer-tasting white variety, say Bill and Craig. YELLOW OR ORANGE The best orange and yellow varieties remind me that the tomato is technically a fruit. 'Hugh's' makes that point deliciously. Bite into its translucent yellow flesh, and those aromatic, peachy sweet juices gush down over your chin. And boy, does 'Hugh's' produce loads of huge, squash-size fruit. 'Yellow Brandywine' has nectarine-like consistency with intense sweetness. The Platfoot strain of 'Yellow Brandywine' ("strain" refers to its seed-saving lineage) scores the highest marks for productivity and flavor in most gardens. 'Yellow Brandywine' is late to ripen and does not set fruit well in my garden unless I wait until the weather has taken a decidedly summery turn before transplanting it into the ground. 'Orange Strawberry' is a rich, meaty oxheart-type that thrives in Wisconsin's moderate summer climate. 'Lillian's Yellow Heirloom', a pale yellow potato-leaved variety, scores top marks for yield, flavor, and disease tolerance in Craig LeHoullier's North Carolina garden. 'Taxi' loads you up with small, round, yellow tomatoes, and then the vines die off as the main-season varieties start to bear fruit. 'Mountain Gold' is a larger and later determinate that has fewer disease problems. 'Lemon Boy', a sunny yellow hybrid, is another good producer. 'Azoychka', Craig says, is a yellow beefsteak-type heirloom that ripens before the nearly orange 'Yellow Brandywine'. 'Verna Orange' looks like a mango and is meaty and productive in my garden. PINK OR RED Acidic, rich, sweet, complex, awesome--words fall abysmally short when it comes to conveying the experience of sinking your teeth for the first time each summer into a sun-warmed, garden-fresh pink or red tomato at the peak of its flavor. 'Brandywine' tops everyone's list in the classic tomato category, its potato-leaved vines reaching 10 feet tall laden with plump, pink fruit. Bill Minkey is partial to the Glick's strain of See less »

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health, kathy smith, lee o'hara, nutrition, organic, sandwich, tomato, tomato tasting results, vegetables

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Comments (2)

From the list : ORGANIC GARDENING by kdoodles

This is amazing. Very well done! Thanks, Kathy www.organichomegardener.com

From the list : My Tomatoes by teleute

Soo many more for me to try!

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The Best Varieties for Tomato Lovers

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