Cherokee Purple. Brandywine. Goose Creek. Even their names sound exotic. Imagine how they taste. We’re
talking of course about the latest trend in health foods sweeping the country, the buying, selling and eating of
“heirloom tomatoes.”
But according to heirloom tomato expert
Laurel Garza, this food isn’t really a fad,
heirloom tomatoes come from stock that
goes way back before the United States
was even a country.
“Usually, heirloom tomatoes come from
seeds that have been passed down from
generation to generation,” she said.
“Some stocks go way back, sometimes all
the way back to 1600s.”
Why are they so popular? According to
Garza, they make the regular grocery store
tomato seem as bland as a piece of white
bread.
“Their taste is very elaborate,” she said.
“They aren’t a one note tomato.” Some
of them have a sweet, smoky rich flavor,
some of them have a tangy nuance,
tasting them is much like having a glass of
fine wine.”
Seeds for heirlooms are as close as your
latest Web site, but the real fun is looking
around your local area. Good places to
try are your local fruit stand or farmer’s
market. The tastiest tomato you ever had
may be as close as your neighbor or your
relative. You will notice while cruising the
Internet that many stocks and varieties
come from individual growers who never
varied their stock for many years, some
even for hundreds.
Garza as a little girl remembered her
first taste of an heirloom came from her
mother’s mother. It was an Ann Russian,
and I remember cutting it open and first
smelling the fragrance. I nearly swooned,”
she said. “And the taste was this nice,
creamy wheat flavor.”
She kept that experience with her through
the years, and one day started www.heirloo
mtomatoplants.com, where customers can
get any type of tomato plant they want.
She says a lot of her customers wonder
why they can’t get them in the grocery
store. The reasons are many, but it all
comes down to one thing, profit, she said.
“The tomatoes you see in the store are
bred to be round, red and thick skinned
so most that are picked and shipped off to
the local grocery store will survive the trip
and when they get there, be appealing to
the customer,” she said.
Not only the color and shape must look
“normal,” but they must taste the way
people are used to tomatoes taste.
But that’s not what you’ll get with a
heirloom. Springing from seeds that have
been passed down from family to family
for generations, customers are likely to
encounter tomatoes with thinner skins,
shaped square like bell peppers or oblong
shaped. They definitely will also have different
tastes and colors than what they’re
used to from the store bought variety, but
they are just as good if not better.
Once you have a heirloom tomato, you will never eat a hybrid
tomato again,” she said.
How much will it cost? Single packets of seeds usually run
between $2 and $5 for a wide range of varieties. Because of the
reasons listed above, it’s rare to find websites that actually ship
heirlooms, so if you want to become a connoisseur, you should
learn to grow your own. Heirloomtomatoplants.com and others
will show you how to do that, as well as how get the most out of
your purchase through taste descriptions and recipes.
Garza said half the fun is looking around your own neighborhood,
so get to know your neighbors too!
