Our Visit To The TomatoFest!
A Weekend Visit To Carmel And The Quail Lodge!
Let The Fest Begin...
We
procured the "VIP" Tickets so we could go to the Hot Tomato Dance on
Saturday night and get entrance into the VIP area at 11:00 and sample
some wines and other delights until the fest opened at 12:30. We
even got to enter the festival area about 15 minutes early which was
perfect to taste the many tomatoes on display.
We took the shuttle from Edgar's to the Quail Meadows... Short ride and
it was door to door for us!
The VIP's had our own tent and tables for the day plus an ample supply
of wine which we consumed with vigor!
Gary and Dagma address the audience while Miss Hot Tomato visits the VIP
members.
The "Doors" Open And We Begin The Adventure
Tomato sherbet is good!
- Simmer together for twenty minutes one quart of chopped tomato, one pint of water, the juice of two lemons and the grated rind of one, two cups of sugar and half a teaspoon of ground ginger.
- When sufficiently cooked pass through a sieve, add four ounces of crystallized cherries and two cups of freshly grated apple.
- Freeze as usual, adding when nearly frozen one glass of Maraschino and the stiffly whipped whites of two eggs.
There are a great many tomato cultivars grown for various purposes.
Heirloom cultivars are becoming increasingly popular, particularly among
home gardeners and organic producers, since they tend to produce more
interesting and flavorful crops at the possible cost of some disease
resistance. Hybrid plants remain common, since they tend to be heavier
producers and sometimes combine unusual characteristics of heirloom
tomatoes with the ruggedness of conventional commercial tomatoes.
Tomato cultivars are roughly divided into several categories, based
mostly on shape and size. "Slicing" or "globe" tomatoes are the usual
tomatoes of commerce; beefsteak are large tomatoes often used for
sandwiches and similar applications - their kidney-bean shape makes
commercial use impractical; oxheart tomatoes can range in size up to
beefsteaks, and are shaped like large strawberries; plum tomatoes, or
paste tomatoes, are bred with a higher solid content for use in tomato
sauce and paste and are usually oblong shaped; cherry tomatoes are small
and round, often sweet tomatoes generally eaten whole in salads; and
grape tomatoes are smaller and oblong or pear-shaped, also used in
salads.
Tomatoes are also commonly classified as determinate or indeterminate.
Determinate, or bush, types bear a full crop all at once and top off at
a specific height; they are often good choices for container growing.
Determinate types are preferred by commercial growers who wish to
harvest a whole field at one time, or home growers interested in
canning. Indeterminate cultivars develop into vines that never top off
and continue producing until killed by frost. They are preferred by home
growers who wish ripe fruit throughout the season. As an intermediate
form, there are plants sometimes known as "vigorous determinate" or
"semi-determinate"; these top off like determinates but produce a second
crop after the initial crop. Many, if not all, heirloom tomatoes are
indeterminate.
Small golden-yellow fruits with excellent sweet taste. Fruits are borne
in giant clusters, enormous yields and never a cracked fruit. Bears
until frost; seed originated from the Gatersleben Seed Bank in eastern
Germany. Indeterminate, 75-80 days from transplant.
Deep reddish-brown beefsteak tomato has a rich, sweet flavor that is
delicious. Fruit is smooth in texture and weighs from 8 to 12 ozs. This
outstanding variety is very productive and seems to set well even when
weather turns hot. Russian heirloom. Indeterminate. 75-80 days
Commonly grown cultivars include:
- 'Beefsteak VFN' (a common hybrid resistant to Verticillium, Fusarium, and Nematodes)
- 'Big Boy' (a very common determinate garden cultivar in the United States)
- 'Black Krim' (a purple-and-red cultivar from the Crimea)
- 'Brandywine' (a pink, indeterminate beefsteak type with a considerable number of substrains)
- 'Burpee VF' (an early attempt by W. Atlee Burpee at disease resistance in a commercial tomato)
- 'Early Girl' (an early maturing globe type)
- 'Gardener's Delight' (a smaller English cultivar)
- 'Juliet' (a grape tomato developed as a substitute for the rare Santa F1)
- 'Marmande' (a heavily ridged cultivar from southern France; similar to a small beefsteak and available commercially in the U.S. as UglyRipe)
- 'Moneymaker' (an English greenhouse cultivar)
- Mortgage Lifter (a popular heirloom beefsteak known for gigantic fruit)
- 'Patio' (bred specifically for container gardens)
- 'Purple Haze' (large cherry, indeterminate. Derived from Cherokee Purple, Brandywine and Black Cherry)
- 'Roma VF' (a plum tomato common in supermarkets)
- 'Rutgers' (a commercial heirloom cultivar)
- 'San Marzano' (a plum tomato popular in Italy)
- 'Santa F1' (a Chinese grape tomato cultivar popular in the U.S. and parts of southeast Asia)
- 'Shephard's Sack' (a large variety popular in parts of Wales)
- 'Sweet 100' (a very prolific, indeterminate cherry tomato)
- 'Yellow Pear' (a yellow, pear-shaped heirloom cultivar)