tomatoes:
In THE BATTLE OF THE MUSHROOMS, portobello mushrooms won, with morel and cremini mushrooms coming next in the poll.
It's now the turn of tomatoes to do battle! I've learnt a lot about tomatoes compiling this post. Now I always knew that tomatoes are a fruit and not a vegetable. But, before this post, I just thought all tomatoes are red and green tomatoes were just unripe red tomatoes. I also thought there just big red tomatoes for burgers, medium tomatoes for salads and little tomatoes for nibbles. How wrong I was!
There are over 10,000 types of tomatoes, including many hybrid cultivars as well as many non-hybrid open-pollinated heirloom/heritage tomatoes. I'm excluding on-the-vine tomatoes because all tomatoes are effectively on-the-vine.
Though I haven't eaten some types of tomatoes and I quite the sound of pimp tomatoes (also called red currant tomatoes)! But all tomatoes I've eaten have been good. My favourite tomatoes are beefsteak tomatoes (on a cheeseburger) and most cherry tomatoes (in a salad), with salad tomatoes (especially in a cheese sandwich) being my favourite tomatoes.
cheese and tomato sandwich:
My least favourite tomatoes are slightly bitter-tasting smaller tomatoes like Piccolo and Santorini tomatoes, with plum tomatoes being my least favourite tomatoes. Plum tomatoes are okay, but sometimes when canned, heated in a microwave and then slopped out on a breakfast plate they're not so appealing to eat.
What are your most and least favourite tomatoes?
In and with what dishes do you serve up tomatoes?
Have you ever grown tomatoes? If so, how did it go?
I love tomatoes however served up, whether with a fried breakfast or a steak meal, whether in a sandwich especially with cheese, whether stuffed with whatever, and whether served as a soup (gazpacho is a great summer soup) or as a sauce (pizzas are nothing without a tomato-based base sauce). Indian dishes are often tomato-based. And I love tomato juice, especially with ice and more than a splash of Worcestershire sauce.
I've never grown tomatoes; in fact, I've never grown any fruits and vegetables. That's best left for others to do in my book. I don't have green fingers never mind red fingers!
Below is a poll where you can anonymously select your most favourite tomato. Unfortunately only one pick is allowed in the poll.
A poll on this site can only have 20 answer options. Unfortunately there was no room for Ace 55, Adoration, Alicante, Amano Orange, American Black Nightshade, Amish paste, Arkansas Traveler/Traveller, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Bangladeshi, Beauty King, Blaby Special, Black Beauty, Black Opal, Bloody Butcher, Blue Beauty, blue/purple, bull's egg, Campari, Costoloto Fiorentino, Costoluto Genovese, Evergreen, Gardener's Delight, Garden Peach, German Johnson/German Johnson Pink, Giulietta F1, God Love, Golden Jubilee, Golden Sunrise, Green Envy, Hangover, Hanover, Hillbilly, Japanese black trifele/black truffle, Jubilee, Kellogg's Breakfast, lemon boy, Lillian's Yellow, Marvelous/Marhio, Micro Tom, Moneymaker, Monterosa, Montserrat, Mr Stripey, oxheart, Pantani Romanesco, pear/teardrop, pineapple, Berkeley Tie-Dye, Rebellion, red currant/currant/pimp, Rosa de Barbastro, Rosso Sicilian, Rutgers/Jersey, Scorpio, Striped German, tangerine, Thessaloniki, Three Sisters, Tomkin, Valencia, Window Box Red and Yellow Canary/Canario tomatoes as poll options.
I think it'll be a four-way fight between beefsteak, cherry, heirloom and salad tomatoes, in which salad tomatoes will just emerge victorious in the poll.
I want to thank @EnigmaInitiative for her helpful advice about heirloom tomatoes in compiling this poll.
Please see the first comment below to see what has won each battle of the food and drinks so far.
La Tomatina, an annual tomato festival held in Buñol, a Spanish town near Valencia:
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32 comments
I've had tomatoes in my garden for many years. The species varies with availabity of the seedlings, but beefsteak is a favorite (for eating directly or as part of a sandwich), Roma for salsa or tomato sauce, and cherry for salads.
I only have a beefsteak tomato when having a burger.
@SiteSupport Why is this post no longer active? It's about the humble tomato!
It appears an overly cautious re-review flagged your post due to the reference to, "...sound of ‘pimp’ tomatoes". We've gone ahead and approved the post, and it should now be visible on the site.
@SiteSupport Thank you. I'm intrigued whether this was AI trawling through old blog posts?
My favourite tomatoes was in vegetables as sauce in salad 🥗😋 as pickles too.. I'm with you yeeeees in cheese pizzas 🍕 breakfast ..in soups... yeeeees I'm not grown before
There's no such thing as a bad tomato!
@spunkycumfun certainly
I have to confess I do not care for fresh or should I say raw tomatoes. Now a good tomato sauce or soup is another story. Sometimes I just have to have toasted cheese with tomato bisc soup for a meal.
I've never come across that soup. It sounds interesting.
@spunkycumfun I may have misspelled it. I think it should be bisque. It is not easy to find so I usually just go with Campbells Tomato Soup. A subtlely different taste.
@justskin1 Most bisque soups here tend to be fish-based ones.
I love cherry tomatoes! 😎
Cherry tomatoes are great. I never understand why some people slice them before serving them up.
this is only one half of the farmer display fo only "cherry" tomatoes
That's a lot of cherry tomatoes!
PS Cherokee are heirloom
I realise heirloom tomatoes cover a range of different types of tomatoes. My poll categories aren't discrete, which is a cardinal methodological sin in research circles!
Ok :late to the polls as usual;. Having my own rolling garden lets me grow that I love . Cherokee are my favs but hard to find seedlings and our growing season is short. RomaPlum are the best for making tomato paste. And there is nothing like a slab of a beefsteak on 12 grain with mayo [ when I was a kid it was on Wonder Bread LOL ]
Here in Britain, we don't come across cherokee tomatoes.
Better late than never!
The best tasting tomato I ever had was in Sicily in a salad. It was quite fresh, which contributed I am sure. I do not know the type.
Tomatoes grown in Mediterranean countries are delicious.
I like cherry tomatoes. But lately, it feels like tomatoes bought at supermarkets are losing their flavor. I bought a pack of a variety of small tomatoes at Costco the other day, but they didn't have much flavor.
That's my impression too. I think the mass-produced tomatoes that supermarkets stock are grown for yield rather than flavour.
I chose Beefsteak because I prefer a large tomato for a BLT. Love only needing one slice for a sandwich. I do the better boy tomatoes too.
Before I moved to away from Iowa for several years I had a large tomato garden at my house. I would have probably easily 15 to 20 plants growing. Growing up in rural Iowa I was used to having canned tomatoes available during the winter. I picked up that skill when I bought my own house.
While most people might not think of this but I did learn that the canned tomatoes were not a bad winter substitute on a salad during the winter. I found better than the out of season tomatoes.
My garden has now grown over with grass after I moved away for several years and have not got around to having it tilled back up for gardening. Part of the problem is I have found that one of the local grocery stores gets some of its tomatoes from relatively local growers. That means they aren't as green when being shipped to the stores and have more a garden fresh taste.
When I was growing tomatoes, I usually had at last one of two early girl plants as a way to get a jump on summer tomatoes. I also tended to splurge on some larger plants in addition to the the traditional size starter plants. One reason is I tended to push the start of the garden. Risking a possible late freeze. The large plants weathered a late freeze better.
You clearly are a tomato expert.
Brandywine is what I would plant, when I used to grow tomatoes. They’re delicious!
I've never knowingly eaten a Brandywine tomato.
Who knew there were such a variety of tomatoes I have
to say I haven't heard of many of these before.
What are your most and least favourite tomatoes?
I would have to say a GARDEN TOMATO IS MY FAVOITE IT'S LIKE
A BEEFSTEAK TOMATO BUT A BIT DIFFERENT.
I don't think I have a least favorite as I don't know
many of these.
In and with what dishes do you serve up tomatoes?
Homemade pasta sauces and salads. I also enjoy
a Tomato, mayonaise and salt and pepper sandwich
as in the summer time it's so refreshing.
Have you ever grown tomatoes? If so, how did it go?
I haven't grown them but my hubby has in many of the gardens we
have grown over the years.
Thanks for another great battle here and I hope your Friday is
a great start to a wonderful weekend..
Before compiling this post, I never knew there were so many tomatoes!
For the record, Brussels sprouts won THE BATTLE OF THE VEGETABLES, bananas won THE BATTLE OF THE FRUITS, basil won THE BATTLE OF THE HERBS, garlic won THE BATTLE OF THE SPICES, cashew nuts won THE BATTLE OF THE NUTS, sunflower seeds won THE BATTLE OF THE SEEDS, roast beef won THE BATTLE OF THE ROAST DINNERS, cheesecake won THE BATTLE OF THE PUDDINGS, pepperoni won THE BATTLE OF THE PIZZA TOPPINGS, Caesar salad won THE BATTLE OF THE SALADS, green beans won THE BATTLE OF THE BEANS, watermelon won THE BATTLE OF THE MELONS, tomato-based pasta sauce won THE BATTLE OF THE HOT SAUCY DIPS, barbecue sauce won THE BATTLE OF THE COOL SAUCY DIPS, vanilla ice cream won THE BATTLE OF THE ICE CREAMS, capellini (aka angel hair) won THE BATTLE OF THE PASTAS, steak won THE BATTLE OF THE BARBECUE, romaine lettuce won THE BATTLE OF THE LETTUCES, honeycrisp apples won THE BATTLE OF THE APPLES, stout won THE BATTLE OF THE BEERS, whisky won THE BATTLE OF THE SPIRITS, clam chowder won THE BATTLE OF THE SOUPS, sourdough bread won THE BATTLE OF THE BREADS, liver won THE BATTLE OF THE OFFAL, roast turkey won THE BATTLE OF CHRISTMAS FOODS, Old Fashioned won THE BATTLE OF THE COCKTAILS, Americano coffee won THE BATTLE OF THE COFFEES, green tea won THE BATTLE OF THE TEAS, maple syrup won THE BATTLE OF THE PANCAKES, barbecue sauce and ketchup jointly won THE BATTLE OF THE CONDIMENTS, ribeye steak won THE BATTLE OF THE STEAKS, and portobello mushrooms won THE BATTLE OF THE MUSHROOMS.