Sunday, June 16, 2013

GRANDPÈRE'S HEIRLOOM TOMATOES



For the first time, Grandpère grew heirloom tomatoes in his garden.  The tomatoes don't look beautiful in the pictures, nor are the colors true, but the taste is delicious. The excellent flavor is different from any tomato I've eaten.  Wikipedia says:
Heirloom tomatoes lack a genetic mutation that gives tomatoes an appealing uniform red color while sacrificing the fruit's sweet taste.


The fruit in the pictures are not quite ripe, because GP is competing with a bird to pick the tomatoes whole without chunks pecked out of them.  The tops of the tomatoes never turn red, so the time is ripe for eating when the feel is slightly soft to the touch.  I'm told by a friend that when the tomatoes can be found in stores or markets, they are expensive.  What a treat for me.

11 comments:

  1. Ann, they are yummy. I eat them the way I eat apples - bite, chew, and swallow.

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  2. When I was a child, my dad always had a big garden. Tomatoes were plentiful, and he was always giving them away by the bag full. Plus, there was a plate of sliced tomatoes on the table 3 meals a day.

    I don't remember the type of tomatoes my grandfather grew, but they were of the heirloom variety. I remember him saving seeds for next year and drying them out on a plate in the sunshine.

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    1. Tastes don't get much better than that of home-grown tomatoes. The color of the bottom half of the heirlooms is more purplish than the color in the pictures. I don't know the name of the variety of the heirlooms, and GP is not here for me to ask. Gone fishing.

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  3. They look yummy! My tomatoes (both heirlooms and hybrids) are still far away from being ripe tomatoes, unfortunately (serves me right for getting them in so late).

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    1. The seasons for growing tomatoes vary throughout the country. The rule of thumb around here is not to plant until after Good Friday, whatever the date. The few times that GP planted before Good Friday, when the date came late in the spring, we had a frost that killed the plants.

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    2. I've got my first pea-sized tomato on my Early Girl (that's a hybrid). But they're (the plants) growing fast, anyway: I staked all 3 of them up today.

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    3. Glad your Early Girls are coming along, JCF. It won't be long before you can taste and enjoy.

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  4. Very nice. They have a wonderful taste.

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    1. I'd never tasted heirlooms before - never even heard of them. Wikipedia says they're called heritage tomatoes in England.

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  5. We can't plant until at least mid-May and even then we take chances with the frost.

    I have a couple of varieties of heirlooms, but alas, they won't be ready until probably mid-July. And then I get bushels and bushels of tomatoes, all at once. Fortunately the food pantry loves heirlooms too!

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    1. GP puts down fewer plants than he once did, so now we have just enough to eat fresh with a few left over to blanch and freeze for sauces. The heirlooms have fewer seeds than the other varieties. I had a whole heirloom with my lunch today, and it was sooo good.

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