"Regaining" Tomato Flavors
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baymule
Garden Master
Your Better Boys still have 10 times the taste of the red tennis balls from the grocery store.I'll see your heirloom and raise you 2 Better Boys....
Although you have me on San Marzano...
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digitS'
Garden Master
If you decide to grow a plum, some outfits describe the one you want as a "saladette." Some "plums" are definitely not for eating fresh; they are for cooking. That's okay and they are better for the pots and the oven than the saladettes.
I have grown Porter saladettes and saved the seed for decades. My uncle and grandmother did that before me. That family history is why I continue. For that reason and because my DW likes them. Their flavor is a little mild for me. Then again, I expect sweetness and some paste plums just don't have that.
It surprises me only a little that Early Girls are so popular. Generations of Americans have grown up with that nearly sure-fire variety in the family garden. They associate an Early Girl with garden fresh tomato flavor. That's fine. Taste is subjective and it is difficult to go much beyond asking a bunch of people, "which of these do you like best." But, NOT asking them, giving them no choice - is nutz!
Steve
Pulsegleaner
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I've never actually been all that keen on calling paste tomatoes "plum" tomatoes as a group. It sort of implies that ALL tomatoes whose fruit shape is elongated are paste tomatoes (they are not) or that all paste tomatoes have an elongated shape (again, no, I am sure, though off the top of my head I can't think of any named paste tomato strains that are round. But they must exist).
That seems to be the pattern with a lot of tomatoes. There ARE categories that work for most, but there are always the odd one that breaks the rule, like cherry tomatoes that have the beefsteak shape (in fact I know of at least one I grew from a fruit from a farmers co-op that seemed to be intent on making itself a beefsteak in truth, by aggregating it's fruits)
That seems to be the pattern with a lot of tomatoes. There ARE categories that work for most, but there are always the odd one that breaks the rule, like cherry tomatoes that have the beefsteak shape (in fact I know of at least one I grew from a fruit from a farmers co-op that seemed to be intent on making itself a beefsteak in truth, by aggregating it's fruits)
