Sowing The Seeds Of A Tasty Tomato Revival

CBS News ^ | 1/14/08 | Staff

[T-Bird45]

The absolute embodiment of summer, vine-ripened tomatos.

[T-Bird45]

One for the food ping list, if you please.

[Miss Behave]

My absolute favorite food.

My mouth watered as I read the headline. :-)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Home grown tomatoes.
The local Mennonites are starting them from seed this month. They'll set them out in late February and have the real thing by April.

[Red Badger]

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

[Clemenza]

I'm partial to heirloom tomatoes from Catalpa Farms myself. They sell at my neighborhood farmers market in season.

The inbred "salad tomatoes" that the big boys grow for soup in Vineland just can't compare to the heirloom varieties.

[jmc813]

Anyone who claims that California tomatoes are superior to Jersey’s is a moron.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

I grow tomatoes in my garden, the best that I have found are the “Big Boy” and “Best Boy” varieties. My favorite cherry tomatoes are “Sweet Millions”.

I’d love to try the Ramapo type! My mouth is watering just thinking about them!

[PeteB570]

Pick one off the vine, slice thick and put it on fresh bread with a little mayo, salt and pepper.

Yum Yum

[Eric in the Ozarks]

A dj I knew used to play this every morning all summer. It had to have boosted the sale of tomatoes by 50 percent.
I liked to raise a veggy garden but I can't compete with the local Mennonites. Their stuff is overwhelmingly good.

[doggieboy]

BLTs might mean bacon lettuce and tomatoes again, instead of bacon, lettuce and tasteless.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

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.

[Billthedrill]

I love 'maters. Real ones. Ones so juicy and tart you don't even need salad dressing. Yum!

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.

[antiRepublicrat]

"People all across the land are frustrated with hard, cardboardy-tasting tomatoes,"

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.

[Young Werther]

Born in Newark and educated at Rutgers I know the foolishness that abounds. I live in Texas and laugh whenever I hear a Pace commercial where the announcer intones, "Picante sauce from Noo Joisey?"

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!

[alice_in_bubbaland]

I’ve grown both and I really don’t see the difference between the two. Maybe this year I’ll plant both for a side by side comparison. I grow them on my deck in large planters, since I don’t want waste valuable space in my garden.

IMHO, The key to great tomatoes is hot weather, composted manure and daily "sucker" picking.

[KarlInOhio]

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.

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.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Spent the weekend in the girl’s dorm at Rutger’s back in 69 or 70...

[dearolddad]

Pick one off the vine, slice thick and put it on fresh bread with a little mayo, salt and pepper.

You dare to bring that up this time of year. ;>)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I wanted to grown my own tomatillos a few years ago so I bought a couple of plants and set them in my raised beds. Holy Cow, did I ever have tomatillos !