Posted on 01/14/2008 8:44:44 AM PST by T-Bird45
The quest for the perfect tomato began in New Brunswick nearly 50 years ago and ended, for now, in a field south of Tel Aviv, Israel.
After eight years of taste tests from chefs and tomato lovers, agricultural scientists at Rutgers University say they have resurrected one of the most delicious Jersey tomatoes ever.
The elusive "Ramapo" tomato seed has been reproduced in Israel and 572,000 certified organic seeds were shipped this month to New Brunswick.
The Ramapo tomato, named after a New Jersey Indian tribe and developed at Rutgers in 1968, will be back for this summer's growing season after an absence of more 20 years.
In the Garden State, considered to produce some of the nation's best tomatoes, that's big news.
"People all across the land are frustrated with hard, cardboardy-tasting tomatoes," said Jack Rabin, associate director of the New Jersey agricultural experiment station at Rutgers. "Ramapo gives them something that's an alternative ... that captures that famous Jersey tomato taste."
Seed companies stopped producing the Ramapo decades ago because commercial farmers sought varieties that grew well in other regions, and the Ramapo did well mostly along the East Coast, Rabin said.
The first major release of more than 8,000 seed packets will be sold by Rutgers in a few weeks, initially to home gardeners like Edmund Ryan of Irasburg, Vt., who remembers first tasting the variety as a teenager from a neighbor in Red Bank.
"It was just the perfect Jersey tomato," said Ryan, 54, who recalled eating the tomatoes in a sandwich after football practice. "It's nice and tart and sweet but also just had a little extra that I can't explain."
Rutgers scientists have been busy pursuing that "holy grail" of productivity, good yield and taste in greenhouses and fields, experimenting with 154 varieties, with flavor as the most important characteristic.
Tomatoes have been an important crop in New Jersey for more than 100 years. Until the 1950s, many were grown for use in tomato products, including soup at the Campbell Soup Co., based in Camden, Rabin said.
After World War II, most of the large-scale commercial farms moved to warmer climates like Florida and California. What remains in New Jersey today are tomatoes for fresh use, at supermarkets, restaurants and farm stands.
In the 1960s, as transportation improved, breeders introduced new varieties to withstand the rigors of shipping from farm to supermarkets, often at the expense of flavor, Rabin said.
A new process also helped shipping: picking the tomatoes green and exposing them to ethylene gas to ripen and turn red to allow for longer transportation and shelf life, said Martha A. Mutschler, a professor of plant breeding and genetics at Cornell.
She said the problem in taste comes when the tomatoes are picked immature green, and they can't fully ripen.
"One reason tomatoes don't taste good is because they are picked too soon," she said. "Another reason is that people refrigerate them."
Of course, it's a matter of palate as well. Tomato lovers are passionate and often go without them during the winter, when in not season.
"The flavor is the most important thing, you know," said chef Andre Soltner, who sold his legendary New York restaurant, Lutece, and teaches at the French Culinary Institute in New York. "When I cannot get good tomatoes with flavor, I don't use them."
For Lucky Lee, co-owner of Lucky's Real Tomatoes in Brooklyn, N.Y., which trucks ripe tomatoes during the winter from Florida back to New York in a day's turnaround, good tomatoes are also a source of nostalgia.
"It reminds you of a different time, a more natural way of living before additives and chemicals were put in everything we eat to make it last longer," she said. "It's a simpler life, a nicer life."
This will be a big day for tomato lovers.
Paul Wigsten, Culinary Institute of AmericaThe Ramapo tomato has elicited that nostalgia on tomato message boards from gardeners clamoring for the seeds.
It will grow well in New Jersey, but in other Mid-Atlantic states too, said its developer, Bernard Pollack. He started working on it in 1960 and is now a retired professor of plant breeding and genetics living in California.
Because the variety is an "F-1" hybrid, gardeners cannot save the seeds and replant them, expecting to recapture the same Ramapo with sweet-acid flavor.
Instead, seeds must be pollinated by hand, usually by a seed company which does the labor-intensive work of crossing the two parent lines, Pollack said. The original "parents" were still at Rutgers.
The "Jersey Tomato working group" at Rutgers, made up of economists, breeders, horticulturists and plant pathologists and first convened in 2000, will present its findings about the Ramapo Tuesday in Atlantic City.
Once they decided to introduce the Ramapo, they found a seed company in Israel, which has a winter growing season, to replicate them at a good price, Rabin said. They will be distributed to home gardeners and later to some commercial farmers to test them.
"As word gets out about the particular Ramapo tomato, there's going to be a huge demand for it across the country," said Paul Wigsten, farm liaison and produce buyer for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
Wigsten has never tasted a Ramapo, but has heard about the lore.
"This will be a big day for tomato lovers. It's real gratifying to see Rutgers concentrating more on flavor than on any other characteristic of the tomato," he said.
One for the food ping list, if you please.
My mouth watered as I read the headline. :-)
Artist: Clark Guy
Song: Homegrown Tomatoes
Album: Keepers [LIVE]
Ain’t nothin’ in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin’ out in the garden
Get you a ripe one don’t get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em’s a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin’ & diggin’
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one
Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What’d life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love & homegrown tomatoes
You can go out to eat & that’s for sure
But it’s nothin’ a homegrown tomato won’t cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat `em with egss, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the site put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle
If I’s to change this life I lead
I’d be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don’t bury me
In a box in a cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin’ up homegrown tomatoes
The inbred "salad tomatoes" that the big boys grow for soup in Vineland just can't compare to the heirloom varieties.
Anyone who claims that California tomatoes are superior to Jersey’s is a moron.
I’d love to try the Ramapo type! My mouth is watering just thinking about them!
Pick one off the vine, slice thick and put it on fresh bread with a little mayo, salt and pepper.
Yum Yum
See if you can find Sweet 100. I was told it is the basis for the Sweet Million. Skin is thinner and I think its sweeter.
One additional difficulty with the grocery-store ones is that they were bred to survive a mechanical picker. Thick hide and not so much juice. Better than nothing, but only barely. IMHO.
Amen.
A new process also helped shipping: picking the tomatoes green and exposing them to ethylene gas to ripen and turn red to allow for longer transportation and shelf life
Thus the cardboard. I hope they put the seeds on the market so I can grow my own next spring. I just bought a new juicer, can't wait.
Of course, they don't know that Pace is made in New Jersey from those vine ripened tomatoes which are the jewel in the crown of Rutgers (A&M) yes Rutgers is an A&M. Pass me the ketchup!
IMHO, The key to great tomatoes is hot weather, composted manure and daily "sucker" picking.
Yuck! They would ship baseballs painted red if they could. It would be a lot easier because they could use dump trucks to deliver them.
I would rather grow my own. I just have to remember to stagger them so I have some early in the season right through the first hard frost. Yum! for homegrown ones.
Spent the weekend in the girl’s dorm at Rutger’s back in 69 or 70...
You dare to bring that up this time of year. ;>)
Here I am, daydreaming about spring, itching to plant tomato seeds in my greenhouse, when, suddenly, I come across this gem on FR.
I want some of these seeds. Ping your tomato loving friends, this is great news for those who love good homegrown tomatos.
I've been told that they were genetically developed to have thicker skin so they will ship better. I'm sure glad they ship better, but they sacrificed the flavor....nearly all of it...in the trade-off.
I grew up in Iowa and fondly remember the garden tomatoes we grew. I even enjoy the aroma of the tomato plant that you get when picking them.
Thank heaven for the farmer's markets where you can still get the real thing.
My wife never used lo like tomatoes and would always avoid them, but when we were in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, we bought a grocery sack of fresh tomatoes at their excellent farmer's market. I talked her into trying one, sliced with a wee bit of salt to bring out the flavor.
It was love at first bite for those real tomatoes, but she still will not even bother the commercial tomatoes.
Cali does grow the best oranges in the U.S., however, among other products.
One thing I do miss from my two years in Seattle was the Washington state Asparagus.
Bacon and tomato go well together, but in recent years I have become a dedicated fan of a tomato salad mix that has been known to have big applause.
I know that everyone has had this while out, but perhaps my particular blend is worth consideration.
Fino - 10Yr old Balsamic
Crumbled Bue Cheese
Spray a little tiny bit of Olive oil thinned with Champaign vinegar.
Fresh Ground Pepper
Fine Chopped Sweet Red Onion
Fresh Basil Leafs crushed and shredded by hand then chopped more finely.
Tomato slices, perhaps a little thinner than in the resturant versions.
Cut the tomato slices in thirds to match a large bite size.
Perpare in the reverse order of the ingrediant list above. and serve fresh.
Make extra and call me.
Hey Eric,
I used to live in Kimberling City Mo., in the Ozarks. I grew the most wonderful tomatos there. I found out nearby Galena, the entire area, used to be famous for tomato canneries. The soil there is perfect for growing tomatos. I live in Tennessee now, and have grown tomatos in several states, but never any like I grew in the Ozarks.
When I go to the farmer's market my kids just start eating the tomatoes straight off the pile, all gone except the stem bit, except one of the kids eats that too. The owner gets a kick out of it every time. I guess kids devouring fresh tomatoes as if they were candy is a rare sight.
Whoops, I left out the capers.
Good capers, but rinse them twice and use two to three times as many as you think is normal. LOL.
I’ll admit I’m no tomatoe fan, but what passes for a tomatoe at the supermarket is disgusting.
Picked while green, placed in rooms filled with ammonia or whatever it isto make the skins red and then sold as vine ripened...
Digusting.
Asparagus? Icck.
We got several cherry tomato plants one year. The yield was so high I got frustrated trying to keep up with picking, so I just started sending the kids out every couple days. Unfortunately, they never actually returned with any tomatoes.
Oh! You have a greenhouse! I am green with envy. LOL
-10 degrees here in Minnesota this morning and I’m dreaming of gardening. I started basil, cilantro and parsley this weekend but they have to be content on the windowsill. Sigh.
Yum Yum
Now you got me salivating for tomato.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
I love to make "baconless" BLT's just as you describe.
And there is something special about the tomato-mayo combination of flavors...a snack marriage made in heaven. And if you are a man with an enlarged prostate (I've read where that's about half of us over 50), the lycopene in tomatoes, the very stuff that makes them red, has health benefits for the prostate as well as a lot of other internal workings of the body
OK, it's getting to me now. There is a farmer's market about two miles from here. Thank goodness I don't have to crawl on my hands and knees to go there and get my "maters" (Southern for "tomatoes"), but I would if that's what it took to score a few nice ones for lunch.
We have plenty of heat and water from Lake of the Ozarks but no dirt. Plenty of rocks if you need some.
I’m with your wife. I *love* good fresh tomatoes, but can’t stand most commercial ones, at least raw. I generally ask for “no tomato” if I order a sandwich or burger because I don’t trust that they’ll have ones I find edible.
There are few things nastier than mushy, tasteless tomatoes...and few things better than a really good fresh one, sliced with a little salt, or on bread with a bit of mayo and salt and pepper!
Rats! I was hoping it was an heirloom variety, which I prefer.
I grow over 30 different heirlooms. Black, purple, red, pink, green, yellow, orange, and stripped. I can them, roast and freeze them, and sundried. I don’t remember the last time I bought a store tom. I don’t usually eat them in restraunts.
Mmm...asparagus. And you’re right, it’s good here - and comparatively cheap!
I understand now why my mom had such a hard time with the available produce when they moved from Portland to rural Vermont. Granted, it’s better there now than it was then, but even so...
If you research the Balsamic I recommended you will find it is an expensive version of that brand. I pay up to $42 a bottle for it and never hesitate to buy it if I am running low.
The difference between it and grocery store brand balsamic is night and day.
Carolyn
I send my hubby out to pick our cherry tomatoes, right before dinner. I think he eats more right off the vine than he brings in for the salad. :)
Out of the two plants on our deck, he have enough for friends, neighbors, co-workers and business associates!
Yum, yum, yum!
I grew up down the road from Rutgers. I *love* tomatoes — especially Jersey ones. The joke used to be that Jersey tomatoes were so good because of all the chemicals in the soil from Squibb, Dupont, Hercules, etc. Lol! I don’t care. I’ll take my chances on a great tomato any day!
I agree for what you find around here, except try some white asparagus from Germany, from around the area south of Mannheim (called "spargel" there). It's a completely different thing, and delicious. The people there are in love with their asparagus, and they even have big asparagus festivals during harvest season. All the restaurants push to be first to get some major crop so they can offer their fresh asparagus dishes to customers who have been waiting for it for months.
Lol!
Has to be cooked right. It is a VERY difficult vegetable to cook due to the narrow windom for error. Take it out too soon and it is impossible to chew, leave it in only a few second over and it is soggy. Getting the right level of crispness for Asparagus is so difficult that it is the only vegetable where I defer the cooking to others.
You were peeling a couple of tomatoes??
I spent most of my time in the Air Force in the Kaiserslautern area - they had asparagus festivals there, too. And the white asparagus - you’d see fields where they were growing it under tarps, or something like.
And there were lots of great restaurants.
*sigh*
I really miss the food there.
I grew 3 different varieties last summer. All were marvelous.
L
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