I miss homegrown tomatoes :( It's not even so much the difference between "heirloom" and "non-heirloom"; it's the difference between "picked ripe" and "picked green then ripened with ethylene". They're not close to being the same thing. Not. Close. Heirlooms just add variation and fun properties. :)
Yeah, I grow some hybrid varieties and they're so much better than the grocery store tomatoes as well. I grow them because they tend to fare better against late blight.
My favorite soup (using these juicy heirloom tomatoes) is to cut then in half and lay them out on a cooking sheet with cloves of garlic and onions. Bake until all are nicely caramelized. Throw in a blender with fresh basil and puree. Easy and perfect roasted tomato soup!!
i like to remove the core and freeze them whole in good freezer bags. just take em out and run under hot water and the skin peels right off, perfect for soups and stews all year long! i put up lots of maters this way.
Slicing them into 3, 4, or 5 slices before roasting yields slices you can then use as a sub for noodles in a 'lasagna' kinda like eggplant parm casserole. Or, dice roasted & raw, add cubes of good day-old bread, olive oil, good vinegar (or citrus), salt & pepper, garlic if you like, tiny mozzarella balls if you like - great salad!
I grew these two summers ago! They have a deeper, meatier flavor. More umami. Excellent when roasted and put on toast with mozzarella and a dash of balsamic vinegar!
Heirloom tomatoes are always so frickin good compared to the tomatoes we get here in and throughout the US and are the classic Grainger County tomatoes. Granted they are pretty darn shelf stable comparatively, and they taste it. They stay green for like year. 😢
'Indigo Rose' is not an heirloom tomato, it is a quite recent introduction. The Japanese tomato looks like a 'Momotaro' which is also not an heirloom, but rather an F1 hybrid. Same goes for the 'New Girl', which is why the 'New Girl' tases like a normal tomato.
Any time that I had a misfortune to eat store bought tomatoes I was reminded how much better are those I have in my garden. They are ugly, full of cracks and folds, and not round, but taste great. And we eat them fresh from june to september, and than they are preserved as a winter food.
I guess it's one of the benefits of living in the country - growing your own fruits and vegges. Then again, people who live in the big cities have access to more variety of fruits, so I guess it balances out. At least I have your channel to inform me of all the fruits I'm missing out. Keep up the good work!
I realized a few years ago the reason why I didn't love eating them they have very little taste to me but I remember eating organic home grown tomatoes that hasn't been refrigerated. I remember eating them like I would eat an apple. By the way I'm going to copy your idea of the tomato salad and soup idea. thanks
I've definitely read something about how putting tomatoes in the fridge ruins tomatoes, because they stop producing various fragrant molecules that influence the flavour. And letting tomatoes actually ripen on the plant makes a big difference, too.
I've grown heirloom tomatoes and they were not damaged, too soft, cracked etc. I think people use 'heirloom" and organic as an excuse to pawn of substandard products. Some varieties do TEND to crack, split but proper care prevents that.
One way to get decent tasting tomatoes from the store is to buy cherry tomatoes as those are typically picked ripe. Larger tomatoes don't ship well when ripe so they are often picked green and "ripen" after picking. In recent times, some varieties have been developed that have thicker skins and ship better ripe.
Great video! I love tomatoes and I always grow heirloom variety Cherokee Purple, Mr. Stripey, Pineapple, and one called a Black Krim. I also grow the Black Cherry cherry tomatoes and they're amazingly delicious! The black cherry ones often don't make it in the house :)
I only grow heirloom tomatoes . They are beautiful and delicious. There are hundreds of types within the catagorey of plum, grape , cherry, paste etc. Commercial tomatoes were bread for long shelf life uniformity. They don't have much flavor. You could grow the ones you bought in a pot in your apartment. It's super easy! Love your taste descriptions.
Don't be so quick to discredit commercially grown products though. Many of them are actually perfected through centuries of selective breeding, and are amazing in their own right.
+Andiar Rohnds Your assumptions are ridiculous. Toxicity are not extremely variable from one variety to another therefore such precaution is not needed. The contents of varieties are also being tested upon registering those varieties as they look for that variety's signature characteristic(s) so we know the biochemicals found within them. The problem with widely available commercially grown produce is that the edible quality isn't the most important characteristic considered anymore. Other factors like shelf life, appearance, pest and disease resistance, and how much produce can be harvested from that plant variety is now considered more important. That is why we have lost up to 90% of edible plant varieties over the past 100 years.
+Andiar Rohnds, several of your your arguments are based on unfounded assumptions again. I am not saying that the word "toxicity" confers immediate suffering and death. I know that there is this thing called LD50 as a way of measuring its potency in organisms. Also, if you stated that tomatoes barely contain toxic compounds, why were you asking him if he could detect each varieties' toxicity level, and how will he be able to detect that? By taste, or smell? Some toxins are not even perceptible until they did their damage to the body(ie. Radon, Botulinum toxin, the toxic compounds in mushrooms, polonium). He does not have a chemical kit. The statement that he would be able to detect toxicity based on what he did alone is based on the assumption that the toxins can be detected by the senses which is stupid. Moreover, tastes are subjective and preferential. There is no such thing as a perfect taste. You just say it is so because you have mentally formed an "image" of what a certain food should taste like which you based on the common commercial varieties. That's not perfect taste, but that's the taste you prefer. There is only intensity and complexity of taste. In the US, mangoes aren't as popular as other parts of the world because their most widely available variety is the relatively bland Tommy Atkins, so their impression of the fruit is not as good as if a more intensely flavored and sweeter mango variety is widely available to them instead. Please, I study chemistry and I have a background in agriculture so I am not ignorant of things you accuse me to be ignorant of. I hate cursing but since you did that to me please fuck off too.
Guys it's just tomatoes! Chill out, it's not that serious. The only thing that I've heard is that some people who may be sensitive to nightshade may need to limit their consumption.
Open pollinated actually means "breeds true", not that anything can get in there and make weird tomatoes. So kind of the opposite of what you said, lol. Heirlooms are all stable cultivars that produce the the same, stable plants year after year. They are indeed often weird looking, but that's more a factor of not being bred for long term storage or shipping like modern grocery store varieties. Anyway, fun to watch you enjoy so many types of tomato!
Being from Iowa, I've had all manner of heirloom tomatoes. Two which are really good are the Mortgage Lifter and the Beefsteak tomatoes. Both really hearty and tomatoey! I've had orange colored tomatoes, which as you say are lower in acid. When a friend of mine was in library school, she took a classmate some of the orange tomatoes for the little bit of freakout factor. My wife once grew some big hybrid tomatoes which were sort of heart shaped and loaded with classic tomato flavor. I have not seen any like them since we ate the last ones from the garden nearly twenty years ago.
Hey, someone else from Iowa? I’m a huge fan of the Cherokee Black tomato, I bought a plan from a local co-op and it was so cool to try them. They have a really nice richness to them and they are much softer due to the juiciness. Beefsteak and Sugar Sweet are also pretty good from my experience.
@@TheRunningLeopard Hi, greetings from the present-I wrote that comment quite a while ago! The Cherokee Black sounds interesting, I need to look into it and try it.
@@vilstef6988 Hope you didn’t mind me responding to your comment, it’s just so rare to find other people from Iowa online. I think the Cherokee Black is more than likely some subspecies of the Cherokee Purple as they taste very similar to what he described those were like. They’re a little bit darker though in colour though and they are very soft to the touch due to just how juicy they are.
@@TheRunningLeopard I'm fine with having conversations in the comment threads. Thanks for telling me more about the Cherokee tomatoes, I know nothing about them and need to find out more. If you like Iowa content, I'd recommend my favorite farming channel, Cole the Cornstar. Cole is a young man whose family farms 1800 acres in Marshall county. If you are in Iowa you learn a certain amount about farming by osmosis. Cole's channel is fun, entertaining and I've learned quite a bit. Another channel is IowANFarmer. Does a lot of the things Cole does, but the tone is different. One of the things I was doing on UA-cam this year is watching the harvest of crops we don't have in Iowa, and things like how mechanical stone picking is done. Potato harvesting! The machines are pretty amazing.
A woman I used to work with used to grow what she called german pink. They had a striped appearance best I can remember. They large and were very good. A good blend of sweet and savory.
Depending on where you look there are 3000+ heirloom varieties available at this point... And some you can find old seed and try to bring back. I have 2 or 3 I keep trying to get to germinate.
Depends on how they're are grown, too. Mostly tomatoes are picked when they are only half ripe (even the so-called Wine ripened ones) before they develop the taste. That way their shelf life is way longer.
INDIGO ROSE!!! That is my favorite tomato! I grow it every year. I love it because it doesn't have a strong tomato taste and is very versatile: sliced for sandwiches, used in sauces and soups or just eaten like a fruit. :)
"Wow look at that! Looks like a dead animal" 😂 oh my. Store tomatoes taste like water, with a hint of tomato flavor. Mega corporate agriculture isn't worried about taste, they're worried about longevity (obtained through chemical preservatives). Great video!
I’ve had cake that called for tomatoes for moistness (the tomato taste is undetectable, especially if you use regular commercial ones) but I imagine it could benefit greatly from those sweet tomatoes.
I had some of the cacao tomatoes once, they were quite small, not as small as a cherry tomatoe, but mine were all brown, no green or lightness, and they were super flavorful.
Cherokee Purple is one of my favorites. There's a bright golden orange colored one I've gotten locally that is also really really good... still tastes like savory tomato but less acidic and more firm. Super good if you ever come across it. The Cacao tomato is so beautiful on the inside. It's like a work of art.
I treasure heirloom tomatoes and I only plant heirlooms. To me they are like the true breeds. I have 13 different favorite varieties such as brandywine yellow, oxheart, German Johnson, great white, etc. So flavorful. The seeds are expensive though but worth it.
I love tomatoes. Tomatoes with salt. An interesting thing about why tomatoes taste so much better with a little salt, is that the glutamate of the tomato combines with sodium (salt) and makes a natural MSG in your mouth!
Nothing better than a nice homegrown quality tomato! I'm growing Indigo Apple tomatoes here in SW Florida. They are purple/blue in color. I just uploaded a video to my channel. I haven't had a chance to taste them yet, but really cool looking color. Love your videos!
You can ruin a homegrown tomato by refrigeration. It zaps all the flavor! They pick the tomatos for stores green from the field and refrigerate them as soon as they are cleaned! I grow massive amounts in the summer in my garden and a few in pots in my house in the winter. I hate the flavorless bricks you buy at the store.
Indigo Rose is a hybrid of a tomato & another somewhat related fruit hybrid here in Oregon. It was to try getting the purple antioxidants into tomatoes. My experience with the smallest ones from this set of crosses is that the skin was a lot tough than a normal tomato.
They are new... I grew them last year and while they were super productive, mine tasted watered down, more salty and not sweet at all compared to my Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, and Rose tomatoes.
The best part of spring and summer is Tomato season! We've got a local... it's family owned, kinda a roadside stand but they grew to the point that they have more of a small store. But it's nothing for our family to smash through 2 huge Beefsteak's in a single sitting! Just slice them up, salt pepper. Or a Tomato sandwich YUM! Omg Tomato season needs to get here! lol We don't have room to grow them ourselves, we tried a Topsy Turvy, but before they fully ripened they would get black rot spots :-( but I had friends also tell me that they normally had good tomatoes but they had a bad season, so maybe it wasn't us or the Topsy Turvy. Maybe we'll give them another try this year.
Weird Explorer A lot of people are very successful with upside down planters. I'm thinking either it wasn't a good season or my plants didn't get enough sun, so I'm going to move my planter and hope for the best.
Just found your channel and have been amazed at the variety of fruits in existence. We see so few readily available varieties. I would try to grow many myself, climate permitting, but seeds or seedings are just not avalable in Oz, for the most interesting types. Still we do have some bush tucker plants that are good. With respect to heirloom tomatoes, I buy them when i see them and keep the seeds to grow myself. As heirlooms they should crop true to type, and unlike buying a packet of seed I can taste what im planting without having to wait a whole season. Also you get a lot more seeds more cheaply than from a packet of heirloom tomato seeds.
Store bought tomatoes are never as good as home grown ones, even if you just grow the standard ones they have at stores anyway. My personal favorite that I grew last year was Black Cherry, but I can't seem to find more seeds for them this year. They're all pretty easy to grow, too- even in pots.
Even setting aside that tomatoes picked "calico"(first hint of orange-red blush on a green fruit) is legally able to be sold labeled as "vine ripened". Storage below about 55f(or is it 50f?) permanently neutralizes certain tomato flavor compounds.
One of the problems with store tomatoes is they pick them green although they turn red they don't actually ripen. Another problem is they are stored too cold and they get a mealy texture. Any homegrown tomato will be far better.
Oh, so now I know why standard supermarket tomatoes often had that mealy texture and dryness. Growing up, I just thought that was a characteristic of tomatoes, because those were the only tomatoes sold in stores then. Later on, when cherry and Roma tomatoes were introduced to big stores, I just thought those were juicy because they were different varieties and picked later (I did know by then that standard tomatoes were picked green and ripened after shipping).
I know that this is an old video, but the yellow tomato is called a Brandywine Yellow... They have a meaty but sweet taste to them. Great for sandwiches and salads. Though if you like a sauce with a mild tomato flavor, this would be a great one to use. I have seen people can these, but for me, they're best eating fresh! 🤗💖
The best part of spring and summer is Tomato season! We've got a local... it's family owned, kinda a roadside stand but they grew to the point that they have more of a small store. But it's nothing for our family to smash through 2 huge Beefsteak's in a single sitting! Just slice them up, salt pepper. Or a Tomato sandwich YUM! Omg Tomato season needs to get here! lol
I dont remember cultivar, but as a kid, I would always look forward to visiting my grandfather just to sit out on the back deck eating tomatoes straight off the vine. The two types I remember most... one was like a cherry tomato in size, shape and consistency of a plum tomato, and was very sweet and fruity, almost citrus-like. The other tomato was what he called an oxheart or a bulls heart tomato: Very large (think about the size of two large fists side by side. It was elongated a bit like a plum tomato. Consistency was extremely meaty, moreso than what I would call plum tomato consistency. The taste was on the extreme end of savory with a mild sweetness.
You should find some Mortgage lifter tomatoes. A delicious variety with great size to it. The Cherokee purples are my favorite tomatoes to grow so far as the reward is great.
I walked the Camino in Spain, I walked over 800 km. Along the way I passed through numerous villages, every time I walked through a village, I hunted up a mini mart or small shop, for local tomato’s. The best tasting tomato’s I’ve ever eaten, however, they were fairly ordinary to look at, different colours, shapes, sizes. But the taste! Bread, cheese, tomato! Even eaten “straight” like an apple, they were great. Find some red onions, pickles and tomato, either on a plate or on bread, add a dash of black vinegar, wow.
I did a hunk of the camino recently. I really got to enjoy the tomato and olive oil on bread set that all the cafes had. Wouldn't work with a garbage tomato.
In France you can find loads of different type of tomatoes everywhere , and if you cut them vertically they should look like regular tomatoes but with different colors
Vine tomatoes were developed in the gas shortage of the 1970s so people could have consecutively ripening tomatoes and make fewer car trips to the store 😁Thanks for the tomato review. I am lucky to know a tomato gardener!
Some heirloom tomatoes are best for different applications. They all aren't exceptional when eaten raw just in a mixed salad with other heirlooms. So my breast for being cooked summer best for tomato sauce. Some of my favorites are Jetstar green zebra and I can't remember the name of the purple tomato that is nearly Brown. That is one of my favorites. Jetstar are also gorgeous baked in the oven in their skins with really good olive oil.
Glad you are doing it. Industrially grown tomatoes are awful. But try Bulgarian variety called Beef Heart. It's huge juicy and has tremendous aromat. You bring one into a room and you know - there is tomato in the room. You can smell it :)
They sounds so wonderful! I want to eat them. I want to grow them. To me, A very nice vine-ripe store-bought tomato has a hint of strawberry acidness to it. It is enjoyable when I can find one like that, but that doesn't happen often. These heirlooms sound so much better!
The green on top is a defect called green shoulder, and it is caused by "sunburn" of the fruits that are inadequately shaded by the plant's foliage. The flesh underneath the green shoulder is hard and pale. It is not part of the defining characteristics of the variety of heirloom tomato in question, as their color is. However, some varieties are more prone to it than others.
I wish they would have have the Tequila Sunset Heirloom for you to try. You cut it open and it's just beautiful inside and has a wonderful taste. I think I had a Black Betty variety too which was virtually black on the outside and the inside. Actually more cool to look at but still delicious to consume.
Just a few thoughts: technically tomatoes are not open pollinated; they are self-pollinated. All tomatoes are hybrids; we do not grow the wild species.
Tomatoes are indeed self-pollinated. Not all tomatoes are hybrids though, and heirloom ones are not hybrids in particular. Here is the distinction between heirloom cultivars and hybrids (natural or commercial). Hybrid genes come from female and male plants with different characteristics and their seeds will have random combination of those characteristics after meiosis, like in nature. Heirloom cultivars are very much inbred tomatoes to the point of having same genes in female and male plant (gametophytes). And even after meiosis their seeds will have same genes as the original plant. The whole point of heirloom tomatoes is that you can keep growing same varietiy from your own seeds.
@@kir2847 You can keep seeds from heirloom tomatoes, however, you need to hand pollinate (cover flower prior to opening in 2 flowers). Heirloom tomatoes can cross pollinate.
@@Lyndsay-jh2um In my experience cross pollination is quite unlikely, you would rather need to manually cross pollinate them for it to happen. Your experience may differ, I've been growing 20-30 varieties together for over 15 years from own seeds and cross-pollination never occured. We have to grow them in greenhouses though, so there are probably fewer bees to mess with the flowers.
Great channel, thanks. Jealous? Every time I watch one of your videos. You know there is a fruit underground? Some fruits are poisonous, as in, they will kill you. Other fruits are poisonous, as in, they are hallucinagenic, or narcotic. Some fruit well land you in jail if you have them because they are Genetically modified, and are the property of some company. There cherry tomatos with the gene that makes Blue berries blue in them. There was this other tomato that had it's color, and flavor genes ramped up. If you know who to talk to, you can get your hands on them. Some people have fruits growing in their back yards that are illegal import, or grow in the United States. You are just seeing the tip of the iceberg.
LOL! "This is your normal tomato". It's a hybrid, so by definition, it is not your "normal" tomato. having said that, they do look pristine, but with absolutely NO taste whatsoever.
Doesn't NYC have its own farmers market(s)? Or are those so bad you have to get out of town to get something good? (not living in the US so I wouldn't know ^_^)
Regular tomato are the new kid on the block. They were designed to be shelf stable, with little concern for taste. Honestly, Tomatos are whole other country in the fruit world. You could jump into the subject, and never come up again.
If you are going to try growing heirlooms, start with 5-6 varieties, and find a flavor you like. Heirlooms have a wide range of flavors, and everyone has a preferred tomato.
Watched this hoping to find a review of a new kind of tomato to grow, but I already grow Cherokee Purple, and they totally are the best I've had so far. Still looking for other varieties that can even compete.
There's a ton more kinds out there I'm trying to grow some interesting cherry tomatoes this year. The "sugary" variety is supposed to be as sweet as candy. And also I'm trying out the "currant" cherry tomatoes Wich are supposed to be the smallest tomato.
Store tomatoes are probably ripened off the plant, that's why they taste so bland! In the summer here we get fresh tomatoes in the stores grown on the plants and they are so much better! I call the winter or imported tomatoes "wood" tomatoes because they are hard and tasteless :p This summer I had my own tomatoes and those ripened on the plant were so good, but when it started to freeze outside, we picked all green ones and ripened them inside. Those tasted as bland as the store tomatoes so I just dried them.
Ive heard the amount of water you give them makes them taste watery n etc. Tomatoes are definitely something that tastes better fresh/home grown. Its a lot sweeter and flavorful and even the accidental unripe ones have some flavor to it
If you find a Hillbilly Potato Leaf tomato, buy 3, it’ll be your favorite heirloom of all time ❤️ it’s balanced between tartness, sweetness and savory tomato flavor and it is bold in all three.
I must have had a strong sense of taste as a young kid, because I didn't like tomatoes, most of which were the large bland store-bought kind, because of their _taste._ Nowadays, I can still taste them (the store ones), if they're the only thing in my mouth. I have to wonder if some of my taste buds got scalded off from failed attempts to like coffee. Or if it's just that my tongue got bigger and lowered the surface density.
There is also a German variety that I love which tastes a bit salty. It's one of the best tomatoes on the planet. Never refrigerate tomatoes! The cold shuts off a chemical that gives it its flavor even good store-bought tomatoes that have little flavor all tomatoes taste better left out of the fridge and they will last at least 10 days in your kitchen out of the sun.
Tomatoes are my favorite food! The love apple! The fruit of the gods! Im so sad though, because my favorite food is sliced heirloom tomatoes with salt on top, and the last time I ate them, I got norovirus and projectile vomited up all my precious tomato slices. Psychologically, when you throw something up, it takes a long period of hesitancy to come back to that food, so I still havent had tomatoes again, and its been a few months. SO SAD! I love to see this topic in your video!!!! Store-bought vine tomatoes are disgusting!!!!
I wonder if older people consider supermarket tomatoes "regular". I have a suspicion "regular" tomatoes are having less flavour and more shelf life with every decade.
I miss homegrown tomatoes :( It's not even so much the difference between "heirloom" and "non-heirloom"; it's the difference between "picked ripe" and "picked green then ripened with ethylene". They're not close to being the same thing. Not. Close.
Heirlooms just add variation and fun properties. :)
Yeah, I grow some hybrid varieties and they're so much better than the grocery store tomatoes as well. I grow them because they tend to fare better against late blight.
Yeah, the store bought are just squishy green tomatoes for all they are worth. At least green tomatoes can be fried up nice
My favorite soup (using these juicy heirloom tomatoes) is to cut then in half and lay them out on a cooking sheet with cloves of garlic and onions. Bake until all are nicely caramelized. Throw in a blender with fresh basil and puree. Easy and perfect roasted tomato soup!!
Oh man that sounds great, roasting must give such a nice flavor
i like to remove the core and freeze them whole in good freezer bags. just take em out and run under hot water and the skin peels right off, perfect for soups and stews all year long! i put up lots of maters this way.
That sounds so good!
Slicing them into 3, 4, or 5 slices before roasting yields slices you can then use as a sub for noodles in a 'lasagna' kinda like eggplant parm casserole.
Or, dice roasted & raw, add cubes of good day-old bread, olive oil, good vinegar (or citrus), salt & pepper, garlic if you like, tiny mozzarella balls if you like - great salad!
- That's got to be too good.
I like how descriptive you are when explaining the taste, texture, smell of fruits I almost can taste then too. Keep making these wonderful videos.
Thanks!
Diann Cotterell you should try emmimadeinjapan ^^
I haven't tried all of these varieties but i personally grow the Cherokee purple in my garden and it is my absolute favorite!
How do they taste?
I grew these two summers ago! They have a deeper, meatier flavor. More umami. Excellent when roasted and put on toast with mozzarella and a dash of balsamic vinegar!
I love purple Cherokee tomatoes they're so meaty.
Heirloom tomatoes are always so frickin good compared to the tomatoes we get here in and throughout the US and are the classic Grainger County tomatoes. Granted they are pretty darn shelf stable comparatively, and they taste it. They stay green for like year. 😢
'Indigo Rose' is not an heirloom tomato, it is a quite recent introduction. The Japanese tomato looks like a 'Momotaro' which is also not an heirloom, but rather an F1 hybrid. Same goes for the 'New Girl', which is why the 'New Girl' tases like a normal tomato.
Any time that I had a misfortune to eat store bought tomatoes I was reminded how much better are those I have in my garden. They are ugly, full of cracks and folds, and not round, but taste great. And we eat them fresh from june to september, and than they are preserved as a winter food.
I may just try to grow some in my NYC apt :)
I guess it's one of the benefits of living in the country - growing your own fruits and vegges. Then again, people who live in the big cities have access to more variety of fruits, so I guess it balances out. At least I have your channel to inform me of all the fruits I'm missing out. Keep up the good work!
@@lemmypop1300 u dont have to live in the county to grow a tomatoe plant just a big pot and sun
@@WeirdExplorer Mini-dwarf tomatoes from Renaissance Farms might be the ticket for you!
I realized a few years ago the reason why I didn't love eating them they have very little taste to me but I remember eating organic home grown tomatoes that hasn't been refrigerated. I remember eating them like I would eat an apple. By the way I'm going to copy your idea of the tomato salad and soup idea. thanks
haha go for it!
I've definitely read something about how putting tomatoes in the fridge ruins tomatoes, because they stop producing various fragrant molecules that influence the flavour. And letting tomatoes actually ripen on the plant makes a big difference, too.
I've grown heirloom tomatoes and they were not damaged, too soft, cracked etc. I think people use 'heirloom" and organic as an excuse to pawn of substandard products. Some varieties do TEND to crack, split but proper care prevents that.
One way to get decent tasting tomatoes from the store is to buy cherry tomatoes as those are typically picked ripe. Larger tomatoes don't ship well when ripe so they are often picked green and "ripen" after picking. In recent times, some varieties have been developed that have thicker skins and ship better ripe.
Great video! I love tomatoes and I always grow heirloom variety Cherokee Purple, Mr. Stripey, Pineapple, and one called a Black Krim. I also grow the Black Cherry cherry tomatoes and they're amazingly delicious! The black cherry ones often don't make it in the house :)
Brandywine is also an excellent heirloom tomato!
You don't have enough views. These weird fruits and vegetables are awesome!
I only grow heirloom tomatoes . They are beautiful and delicious. There are hundreds of types within the catagorey of plum, grape , cherry, paste etc. Commercial tomatoes were bread for long shelf life uniformity. They don't have much flavor. You could grow the ones you bought in a pot in your apartment. It's super easy! Love your taste descriptions.
I can't see why anyone would grow anything else after having so many wonderful varieties
Don't be so quick to discredit commercially grown products though. Many of them are actually perfected through centuries of selective breeding, and are amazing in their own right.
+Andiar Rohnds Your assumptions are ridiculous. Toxicity are not extremely variable from one variety to another therefore such precaution is not needed. The contents of varieties are also being tested upon registering those varieties as they look for that variety's signature characteristic(s) so we know the biochemicals found within them. The problem with widely available commercially grown produce is that the edible quality isn't the most important characteristic considered anymore. Other factors like shelf life, appearance, pest and disease resistance, and how much produce can be harvested from that plant variety is now considered more important. That is why we have lost up to 90% of edible plant varieties over the past 100 years.
+Andiar Rohnds, several of your your arguments are based on unfounded assumptions again. I am not saying that the word "toxicity" confers immediate suffering and death. I know that there is this thing called LD50 as a way of measuring its potency in organisms. Also, if you stated that tomatoes barely contain toxic compounds, why were you asking him if he could detect each varieties' toxicity level, and how will he be able to detect that? By taste, or smell? Some toxins are not even perceptible until they did their damage to the body(ie. Radon, Botulinum toxin, the toxic compounds in mushrooms, polonium). He does not have a chemical kit. The statement that he would be able to detect toxicity based on what he did alone is based on the assumption that the toxins can be detected by the senses which is stupid.
Moreover, tastes are subjective and preferential. There is no such thing as a perfect taste. You just say it is so because you have mentally formed an "image" of what a certain food should taste like which you based on the common commercial varieties. That's not perfect taste, but that's the taste you prefer. There is only intensity and complexity of taste. In the US, mangoes aren't as popular as other parts of the world because their most widely available variety is the relatively bland Tommy Atkins, so their impression of the fruit is not as good as if a more intensely flavored and sweeter mango variety is widely available to them instead.
Please, I study chemistry and I have a background in agriculture so I am not ignorant of things you accuse me to be ignorant of. I hate cursing but since you did that to me please fuck off too.
Guys it's just tomatoes! Chill out, it's not that serious. The only thing that I've heard is that some people who may be sensitive to nightshade may need to limit their consumption.
Open pollinated actually means "breeds true", not that anything can get in there and make weird tomatoes. So kind of the opposite of what you said, lol. Heirlooms are all stable cultivars that produce the the same, stable plants year after year. They are indeed often weird looking, but that's more a factor of not being bred for long term storage or shipping like modern grocery store varieties. Anyway, fun to watch you enjoy so many types of tomato!
Being from Iowa, I've had all manner of heirloom tomatoes. Two which are really good are the Mortgage Lifter and the Beefsteak tomatoes. Both really hearty and tomatoey! I've had orange colored tomatoes, which as you say are lower in acid. When a friend of mine was in library school, she took a classmate some of the orange tomatoes for the little bit of freakout factor. My wife once grew some big hybrid tomatoes which were sort of heart shaped and loaded with classic tomato flavor. I have not seen any like them since we ate the last ones from the garden nearly twenty years ago.
Hey, someone else from Iowa? I’m a huge fan of the Cherokee Black tomato, I bought a plan from a local co-op and it was so cool to try them. They have a really nice richness to them and they are much softer due to the juiciness. Beefsteak and Sugar Sweet are also pretty good from my experience.
@@TheRunningLeopard Hi, greetings from the present-I wrote that comment quite a while ago! The Cherokee Black sounds interesting, I need to look into it and try it.
@@vilstef6988 Hope you didn’t mind me responding to your comment, it’s just so rare to find other people from Iowa online. I think the Cherokee Black is more than likely some subspecies of the Cherokee Purple as they taste very similar to what he described those were like. They’re a little bit darker though in colour though and they are very soft to the touch due to just how juicy they are.
@@TheRunningLeopard I'm fine with having conversations in the comment threads. Thanks for telling me more about the Cherokee tomatoes, I know nothing about them and need to find out more. If you like Iowa content, I'd recommend my favorite farming channel, Cole the Cornstar. Cole is a young man whose family farms 1800 acres in Marshall county. If you are in Iowa you learn a certain amount about farming by osmosis. Cole's channel is fun, entertaining and I've learned quite a bit. Another channel is IowANFarmer. Does a lot of the things Cole does, but the tone is different.
One of the things I was doing on UA-cam this year is watching the harvest of crops we don't have in Iowa, and things like how mechanical stone picking is done. Potato harvesting! The machines are pretty amazing.
A woman I used to work with used to grow what she called german pink. They had a striped appearance best I can remember. They large and were very good. A good blend of sweet and savory.
Store tomatoes are rubish, any heirloom would trash them !!! There's over 1000 varieties of tomatoes you're missing 😜😜😜
Depending on where you look there are 3000+ heirloom varieties available at this point... And some you can find old seed and try to bring back. I have 2 or 3 I keep trying to get to germinate.
Depends on how they're are grown, too. Mostly tomatoes are picked when they are only half ripe (even the so-called Wine ripened ones) before they develop the taste. That way their shelf life is way longer.
Stores around here sell organic heirloom tomatoes
And some very well known Nightshades! 😜
INDIGO ROSE!!! That is my favorite tomato! I grow it every year. I love it because it doesn't have a strong tomato taste and is very versatile: sliced for sandwiches, used in sauces and soups or just eaten like a fruit. :)
I was surprised how sweet and fruity it is.
I am looking for a "Strong Tomato" flavor.
@@rickpadgett405 for a strong flavor look for ones like Mortgage Lifter, or any of the other dark reds. Reds have the highest acids.
"Wow look at that! Looks like a dead animal" 😂 oh my. Store tomatoes taste like water, with a hint of tomato flavor. Mega corporate agriculture isn't worried about taste, they're worried about longevity (obtained through chemical preservatives). Great video!
I’ve had cake that called for tomatoes for moistness (the tomato taste is undetectable, especially if you use regular commercial ones) but I imagine it could benefit greatly from those sweet tomatoes.
I had some of the cacao tomatoes once, they were quite small, not as small as a cherry tomatoe, but mine were all brown, no green or lightness, and they were super flavorful.
hey have you tried ground cherries?
they're like tiny sweet pineapple flavored tomatos ... imo
yep, I have two videos on here about them
Can you even imagine all the different chemical compounds going on in all these different varieties!
How I wish I could give you a basket of my different homegrown hairlooms - been selecting for taste for years - and they are beyound compare.
Cherokee Purple is one of my favorites. There's a bright golden orange colored one I've gotten locally that is also really really good... still tastes like savory tomato but less acidic and more firm. Super good if you ever come across it. The Cacao tomato is so beautiful on the inside. It's like a work of art.
I treasure heirloom tomatoes and I only plant heirlooms. To me they are like the true breeds. I have 13 different favorite varieties such as brandywine yellow, oxheart, German Johnson, great white, etc. So flavorful. The seeds are expensive though but worth it.
Great idea! I feel that in New York it can be easier to find durian than flavorful tomatoes. Did you get these during the local tomato season?
It must have been, tomatoes were everywhere when I went there
In Cali we have a weirdly large access to heirloom tomatoes. Definitely excited for summer, when they start hitting stores
I love tomatoes. Tomatoes with salt. An interesting thing about why tomatoes taste so much better with a little salt, is that the glutamate of the tomato combines with sodium (salt) and makes a natural MSG in your mouth!
Nothing better than a nice homegrown quality tomato! I'm growing Indigo Apple tomatoes here in SW Florida. They are purple/blue in color. I just uploaded a video to my channel. I haven't had a chance to taste them yet, but really cool looking color. Love your videos!
thanks tim!
You can ruin a homegrown tomato by refrigeration. It zaps all the flavor! They pick the tomatos for stores green from the field and refrigerate them as soon as they are cleaned! I grow massive amounts in the summer in my garden and a few in pots in my house in the winter. I hate the flavorless bricks you buy at the store.
Tim Huffman how did they turn out?
Indigo Rose is a hybrid of a tomato & another somewhat related fruit hybrid here in Oregon. It was to try getting the purple antioxidants into tomatoes. My experience with the smallest ones from this set of crosses is that the skin was a lot tough than a normal tomato.
Indigo Rose isn't a heirloom BTW, it's a very new breed from Oregon State University. However since "heirloom" sells it's regularly labeled as such.
Ah ha, thanks for letting me know
They are new... I grew them last year and while they were super productive, mine tasted watered down, more salty and not sweet at all compared to my Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, and Rose tomatoes.
im growing sunrise bumblebee and black vernissage tomatoes this year!! check out baker creek heirloom seeds if you want to see some amazing varieties
thanks for the tip!
The best part of spring and summer is Tomato season! We've got a local... it's family owned, kinda a roadside stand but they grew to the point that they have more of a small store. But it's nothing for our family to smash through 2 huge Beefsteak's in a single sitting! Just slice them up, salt pepper. Or a Tomato sandwich YUM! Omg Tomato season needs to get here! lol We don't have room to grow them ourselves, we tried a Topsy Turvy, but before they fully ripened they would get black rot spots :-( but I had friends also tell me that they normally had good tomatoes but they had a bad season, so maybe it wasn't us or the Topsy Turvy. Maybe we'll give them another try this year.
Ha I always wondered if the topsy turvy worked.. might wait on it now haha
Weird Explorer A lot of people are very successful with upside down planters. I'm thinking either it wasn't a good season or my plants didn't get enough sun, so I'm going to move my planter and hope for the best.
Just found your channel and have been amazed at the variety of fruits in existence. We see so few readily available varieties. I would try to grow many myself, climate permitting, but seeds or seedings are just not avalable in Oz, for the most interesting types. Still we do have some bush tucker plants that are good.
With respect to heirloom tomatoes, I buy them when i see them and keep the seeds to grow myself. As heirlooms they should crop true to type, and unlike buying a packet of seed I can taste what im planting without having to wait a whole season. Also you get a lot more seeds more cheaply than from a packet of heirloom tomato seeds.
If you want to try growing stuff, look at ‘Daleys fruit nursery’. They have a huge selection.
Store bought tomatoes are never as good as home grown ones, even if you just grow the standard ones they have at stores anyway. My personal favorite that I grew last year was Black Cherry, but I can't seem to find more seeds for them this year. They're all pretty easy to grow, too- even in pots.
nice!
Izuru Kamukura my wife grows black cherry tomatoes too. They are very good, and you get a lot of fruits, even in a smaller vine.
You can get them on ebay really easily. But also you can save them yourself pretty easily as well, several videos here on youtube.
i'm growing one from seed i took from a tomato i ate, I hope they produce something decent.
please get a garden going weird explorer. I feel like you would love the results. Harvesting your own fruits is rewarding and wayyyyyyyyy tasty
Even setting aside that tomatoes picked "calico"(first hint of orange-red blush on a green fruit) is legally able to be sold labeled as "vine ripened".
Storage below about 55f(or is it 50f?) permanently neutralizes certain tomato flavor compounds.
One of the problems with store tomatoes is they pick them green although they turn red they don't actually ripen. Another problem is they are stored too cold and they get a mealy texture. Any homegrown tomato will be far better.
Oh, so now I know why standard supermarket tomatoes often had that mealy texture and dryness. Growing up, I just thought that was a characteristic of tomatoes, because those were the only tomatoes sold in stores then. Later on, when cherry and Roma tomatoes were introduced to big stores, I just thought those were juicy because they were different varieties and picked later (I did know by then that standard tomatoes were picked green and ripened after shipping).
I know that this is an old video, but the yellow tomato is called a Brandywine Yellow... They have a meaty but sweet taste to them. Great for sandwiches and salads. Though if you like a sauce with a mild tomato flavor, this would be a great one to use. I have seen people can these, but for me, they're best eating fresh! 🤗💖
The best part of spring and summer is Tomato season! We've got a local... it's family owned, kinda a roadside stand but they grew to the point that they have more of a small store. But it's nothing for our family to smash through 2 huge Beefsteak's in a single sitting! Just slice them up, salt pepper. Or a Tomato sandwich YUM! Omg Tomato season needs to get here! lol
I dont remember cultivar, but as a kid, I would always look forward to visiting my grandfather just to sit out on the back deck eating tomatoes straight off the vine. The two types I remember most... one was like a cherry tomato in size, shape and consistency of a plum tomato, and was very sweet and fruity, almost citrus-like. The other tomato was what he called an oxheart or a bulls heart tomato: Very large (think about the size of two large fists side by side. It was elongated a bit like a plum tomato. Consistency was extremely meaty, moreso than what I would call plum tomato consistency. The taste was on the extreme end of savory with a mild sweetness.
Sounds so good!
Jess from Roots and Refuge says that store bought tomatoes taste like disappointment. I think you just proved her right, lol.
Wow Jared your eyes are absolutely beautiful!
You should find some Mortgage lifter tomatoes. A delicious variety with great size to it. The Cherokee purples are my favorite tomatoes to grow so far as the reward is great.
i'll keep an eye out for them :)
I walked the Camino in Spain, I walked over 800 km. Along the way I passed through numerous villages, every time I walked through a village, I hunted up a mini mart or small shop, for local tomato’s. The best tasting tomato’s I’ve ever eaten, however, they were fairly ordinary to look at, different colours, shapes, sizes. But the taste! Bread, cheese, tomato! Even eaten “straight” like an apple, they were great. Find some red onions, pickles and tomato, either on a plate or on bread, add a dash of black vinegar, wow.
I did a hunk of the camino recently. I really got to enjoy the tomato and olive oil on bread set that all the cafes had. Wouldn't work with a garbage tomato.
"normal" tomato .. heirlooms as so much better tasting and as a grower easier to grow.
In France you can find loads of different type of tomatoes everywhere , and if you cut them vertically they should look like regular tomatoes but with different colors
You can get a variety or two of heirloom tomatoes at some supermarkets in the USA.. but they aren't popular
I'd love to see you review a Paul Robeson tomato! I have heard that it has a smoky savory quality to it. I want to grow them when we can get a garden.
Vine tomatoes were developed in the gas shortage of the 1970s so people could have consecutively ripening tomatoes and make fewer car trips to the store 😁Thanks for the tomato review. I am lucky to know a tomato gardener!
Some heirloom tomatoes are best for different applications. They all aren't exceptional when eaten raw just in a mixed salad with other heirlooms. So my breast for being cooked summer best for tomato sauce. Some of my favorites are Jetstar green zebra and I can't remember the name of the purple tomato that is nearly Brown. That is one of my favorites. Jetstar are also gorgeous baked in the oven in their skins with really good olive oil.
Eats all kinds of freaky alien fruits - freaked out by white tomatoes.
That's so weird but awesome. Never knew this was possible!
As a mostly raw vegan, you and I _DEFINITELY_ have a different definition of a “butt ton” of tomatoes!!! LoL
Glad you are doing it. Industrially grown tomatoes are awful. But try Bulgarian variety called Beef Heart. It's huge juicy and has tremendous aromat. You bring one into a room and you know - there is tomato in the room. You can smell it :)
I'm growing cherokee purple tomatoes this summer I'm so excited.
They sounds so wonderful! I want to eat them. I want to grow them.
To me, A very nice vine-ripe store-bought tomato has a hint of strawberry acidness to it. It is enjoyable when I can find one like that, but that doesn't happen often.
These heirlooms sound so much better!
I am from Syracuse NY. The Regional Market is an amazing Farmer's market!
The green on top is a defect called green shoulder, and it is caused by "sunburn" of the fruits that are inadequately shaded by the plant's foliage. The flesh underneath the green shoulder is hard and pale. It is not part of the defining characteristics of the variety of heirloom tomato in question, as their color is. However, some varieties are more prone to it than others.
I love heirloom fruit and veggies.
I wish they would have have the Tequila Sunset Heirloom for you to try. You cut it open and it's just beautiful inside and has a wonderful taste. I think I had a Black Betty variety too which was virtually black on the outside and the inside. Actually more cool to look at but still delicious to consume.
any sandwich, i mean ANY SANDWICH, with a homegrown tomato cannot b beat!!! IMO.... BTW ur soup looks great! nice job!
truth
Heirloom tomatoes look awesome inside, they have wonderful patterns
I always find that farmers markets still harvest tomatoes too early so the flavor is still not great like a homegrown, vine ripened tomato will be
I've just discovered that there exist a lemon drop tomato that is suppose to have a light after taste-resemblance to lemon. 🍋
Just a few thoughts: technically tomatoes are not open pollinated; they are self-pollinated. All tomatoes are hybrids; we do not grow the wild species.
thanks for clearing that up
Tomatoes are indeed self-pollinated. Not all tomatoes are hybrids though, and heirloom ones are not hybrids in particular. Here is the distinction between heirloom cultivars and hybrids (natural or commercial). Hybrid genes come from female and male plants with different characteristics and their seeds will have random combination of those characteristics after meiosis, like in nature. Heirloom cultivars are very much inbred tomatoes to the point of having same genes in female and male plant (gametophytes). And even after meiosis their seeds will have same genes as the original plant. The whole point of heirloom tomatoes is that you can keep growing same varietiy from your own seeds.
@@kir2847 You can keep seeds from heirloom tomatoes, however, you need to hand pollinate (cover flower prior to opening in 2 flowers). Heirloom tomatoes can cross pollinate.
@@Lyndsay-jh2um In my experience cross pollination is quite unlikely, you would rather need to manually cross pollinate them for it to happen. Your experience may differ, I've been growing 20-30 varieties together for over 15 years from own seeds and cross-pollination never occured. We have to grow them in greenhouses though, so there are probably fewer bees to mess with the flowers.
Great channel, thanks. Jealous? Every time I watch one of your videos. You know there is a fruit underground? Some fruits are poisonous, as in, they will kill you. Other fruits are poisonous, as in, they are hallucinagenic, or narcotic. Some fruit well land you in jail if you have them because they are Genetically modified, and are the property of some company. There cherry tomatos with the gene that makes Blue berries blue in them. There was this other tomato that had it's color, and flavor genes ramped up. If you know who to talk to, you can get your hands on them. Some people have fruits growing in their back yards that are illegal import, or grow in the United States. You are just seeing the tip of the iceberg.
Kiki Lang except these aka heirloom varities are not genetically modified....they are naturally like that
I absolutely love your channel. 😍
Indigo rose is an interesting variety. It has genes from a wild Galapagos island species. Always a nice one to grow.
I've wanted to try a Paul Robeson tomato. Its supposed to be smokey and salty tasting. I plan on getting some seeds soon.
My favorite is the White Tomato! I get them at the Farmer's Market when I go on my Day off if they are open. Thankyou for the Video!
You should try Black Krim and Mr. Stripey. Kris is dark purple and Mr. Stripey is green with green stripes.
LOL! "This is your normal tomato". It's a hybrid, so by definition, it is not your "normal" tomato. having said that, they do look pristine, but with absolutely NO taste whatsoever.
Doesn't NYC have its own farmers market(s)? Or are those so bad you have to get out of town to get something good? (not living in the US so I wouldn't know ^_^)
We have a couple in NYC but each tomato costs $895
Regular tomato are the new kid on the block. They were designed to be shelf stable, with little concern for taste. Honestly, Tomatos are whole other country in the fruit world. You could jump into the subject, and never come up again.
very true
If you are going to try growing heirlooms, start with 5-6 varieties, and find a flavor you like. Heirlooms have a wide range of flavors, and everyone has a preferred tomato.
Use the cacao as an addition to another tomato sauce. The sweetness would balance a stronger acid.
Watched this hoping to find a review of a new kind of tomato to grow, but I already grow Cherokee Purple, and they totally are the best I've had so far. Still looking for other varieties that can even compete.
There's a ton more kinds out there I'm trying to grow some interesting cherry tomatoes this year. The "sugary" variety is supposed to be as sweet as candy. And also I'm trying out the "currant" cherry tomatoes Wich are supposed to be the smallest tomato.
YES!
When you said "this tastes like garbage"
Yep!
I LOVE tomatoes but reg store bought ones ARE garbage.
Store tomatoes are probably ripened off the plant, that's why they taste so bland! In the summer here we get fresh tomatoes in the stores grown on the plants and they are so much better! I call the winter or imported tomatoes "wood" tomatoes because they are hard and tasteless :p
This summer I had my own tomatoes and those ripened on the plant were so good, but when it started to freeze outside, we picked all green ones and ripened them inside. Those tasted as bland as the store tomatoes so I just dried them.
German green, ananas, lemon boy, Berkeley tydy. And sungold or sunsugar cherry tomato. Need to do a followup on tomatoes. Green zebra
In China a very common dish is sliced tomatoes sprinkled with sugar. It sounds like most of these would be great for that.
I love heirloom tomatoes. I've tried a few and they're much sweeter and "pure" than the mass produced red tomato.
Ive heard the amount of water you give them makes them taste watery n etc. Tomatoes are definitely something that tastes better fresh/home grown. Its a lot sweeter and flavorful and even the accidental unripe ones have some flavor to it
The biggest downside of heirloom tomatoes is that they don't keep. Otherwise they're superior to store bought tomatoes in every culinary measure.
Thanks Jared.
If you find a Hillbilly Potato Leaf tomato, buy 3, it’ll be your favorite heirloom of all time ❤️ it’s balanced between tartness, sweetness and savory tomato flavor and it is bold in all three.
I must have had a strong sense of taste as a young kid, because I didn't like tomatoes, most of which were the large bland store-bought kind, because of their _taste._
Nowadays, I can still taste them (the store ones), if they're the only thing in my mouth. I have to wonder if some of my taste buds got scalded off from failed attempts to like coffee. Or if it's just that my tongue got bigger and lowered the surface density.
Wow I've never seen a white tomato before, seems very interesting, I'd have to seek them out!
Yeah they have a very different appeal, check it out :)
Jared, you got me drooling for a 'mater sammich, bro. Too bad it's the end of January!
🍅🥑🥓
Homegrown is always best. My favourite is the green tiger striped tomato. Naturally green even when ripened.
There is also a German variety that I love which tastes a bit salty. It's one of the best tomatoes on the planet. Never refrigerate tomatoes! The cold shuts off a chemical that gives it its flavor even good store-bought tomatoes that have little flavor all tomatoes taste better left out of the fridge and they will last at least 10 days in your kitchen out of the sun.
Oh I cringe whenever I see tomatoes in someone's fridge. I'll only do it if the only other alternative is throwing it out.
best i can figure is that we use the royal pearl tomatoes. its great. over ripe i eat them like fruits.
I cant tell the difference between yellow ,green black. Guess when thier ripe when thier soft ?
Tomatoes are my favorite food! The love apple! The fruit of the gods! Im so sad though, because my favorite food is sliced heirloom tomatoes with salt on top, and the last time I ate them, I got norovirus and projectile vomited up all my precious tomato slices. Psychologically, when you throw something up, it takes a long period of hesitancy to come back to that food, so I still havent had tomatoes again, and its been a few months. SO SAD! I love to see this topic in your video!!!! Store-bought vine tomatoes are disgusting!!!!
you are my new favorite youtuber. lol. nice content man.
thanks!
I wonder if older people consider supermarket tomatoes "regular". I have a suspicion "regular" tomatoes are having less flavour and more shelf life with every decade.
I think they look better than "normal" tomatoes. lol Think of the purple one in a sammich with a bit of basil and some cheese.
My wife grows some Cherokee Purples in her garden. They are great.
Heirloom tomatoes also must have never been hybridized. Many stores now carry the heirloom cherry sized tomatoes.