All About Tomatoes

For all the hoopla around "heirloom" tomatoes, I fear people sometimes lose sight of the most important indicators of a tasty tomato. The best tomatoes tend to be:

1. Dry-farmed, which means the tomato plants aren't watered after their flowers set, forcing the plants to work a bit harder to make the tomatoes and leading to better, deeper flavor.
2. Vine-ripened, that is, the tomatoes were allowed to ripen on the vine before they were picked (not simply left on the vine when brought to the store).
3. Locally grown, because tomatoes grown as outlined above are delicate creatures not up for long voyages.

Gone are the days when tomatoes were necessarily red and beefsteak (although I'd never refuse a well-grown, perfectly ripe sliced beefsteak tomato sprinkled with salt!). Find your favorite variety of tomato with these guides.

• Tomato Varieties by Color
• Heirloom Tomatoes
• Hybrid Tomatoes

How often have we all bought perfect looking tomatoes at the store only to bite into flavorless mush? Once is one time too often, quite frankly. While I can't guarantee these tips will forever save you from such a fate, they should keep such incidences to a bare minimum.

• Look Don't worry about tomatoes with weird shapes. Even cracked skin is okay, but leaking juice and soft spots are not.
• Feel Choose tomatoes that feel heavy for their size.
• Smell Tomatoes should smell earthy and tomato-y, never musty or flat.
• Taste This is where farmers market shopping really pays off – you can often taste the tomatoes before you buy them.

Treat tomatoes gently. Heirloom tomato varieties, in particular, tend to be quite fragile. So don't pile the tomatoes in a bag where their weight will squash one another, and always pluck vine-ripening tomatoes off their vines (or the vine stem off them) to avoid having the sharp vines poke holes in your precious cargo. But above all never refrigerate tomatoes. Temperatures under 50° turn tomatoes mushy and mealy.

Extend the tomato season with these recipes.

• How to Make Tomato Paste (Conserva)
• How to Freeze Tomatoes
• How to Peel Tomatoes
• Heirloom Tomato Ketchup
• Green Tomato Marmalade
• Homemade Sun-Dried Tomatoes
• Oven-Dried Tomatoes

Sliced and salted or chopped and tossed into salads are an easy and delicious way to enjoy the wonderful flavor of really ripe and well-raised tomatoes. Try one of these recipes for raw tomatoes:

• 10 Quick Tomato Ideas
• Basil, Corn, Tomato Salad
• Bean, Corn, Tomato Pasta
• Caprese Salad
• Cucumber, Corn, Tomato Salad
• Fattoush Salad
• Red Onion Tomato Salad
• Salsa Fresca
• Spanish Gazpacho Soup
• Tomato Bruschetta

Use these yummy recipes to get started cooking with tomatoes. These were all developed to take advantage of the bright flavor and ripeness of fresh, local tomatoes.

• Grilled Tomatoes
• Late Summer Vegetable Stew
• Summer Vegetable Soup
• Tomato Tuna Pasta

There are more tomato sauces to make in this life than there are dreams to dream. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but if you thought tomato sauce was tomato sauce, give one of these bad boys a try:

• Fresh Tomato Sauce
• Romesco Sauce
• Spicy Creamy Tomato Sauce