OK, actually the truth about heirloom tomatoes, which is my botanical experiment this summer.
They’re ugly.
The Best Boy, Better Beef, Early Girl and various other beefsteak varieties have been bred over the past few decades to produce the quintessential plump, round, red tomato so favored by Hollywood and 5th Avenue for grocery ads designed to make your mouth water and your wallet lighter. A perfect beefsteak tomato may just as well be Gloria Swanson telling Mr. DeMille that it’s ready for its close-up now.
And then there are Black Plums, Black Krims, and Red Zebras. And Brandywines. And Dark Porter Cherry Tomatoes.
These will not win any beauty contests. If one didn’t know they were supposed to be ugly, I think a whole bunch of these would be plucked and tossed out with tomorrow’s trash.
Ah, but if you’ve ever tasted a Black Plum Tomato at the peak of ripeness as we did yesterday, well, you’ll have a completely new appreciation for this fruit. And yes, it’s a fruit, notwithstanding Ronald Reagan’s insistence that ketchup was a vegetable.
Several tomatoes are turning orange, and some are even turning red in my little garden. In a couple of days it will be time to fry up some bacon and get some really crisp lettuce. BLT – one of the great things about summer and tomatoes fresh off the vine.
Think heirloom next summer when you plant your garden.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment