Tasting Tomatoes
 

My mother, DH, and I attended the CHOPTAG tomato tasting at the end of August. It was our first such event. DH has never met a tomato he didn't like, so his report would be that all tasted good.

My mother came away from the tasting more convince than ever that nothing beats her Big Beefs and Early Girls.

I have trouple tasting tomatoes; literally, my taste buds taste them differently from other people. Carolyn is fond of saying there's a genetic component to tastebuds, so everyone tastes tomatoes differently, and boy is it true in my case. In spades. Many of them I can barely taste at all. So here is what my wierd tastebuds said:

The Good::love:

[B]Big Brandy F1 [/B]Good.
[B]Chocolate Cherry[/B] Good, no tang.
[B]Dester[/B] Good, sweet & tangy.
[B]Dotson's Lebanese Heart [/B]Good, would be good fried green(?)
[B]Dr. Carolyn's[/B] Good. Sweet and tart
[B]Golden Green[/B] Good, tart & sweet.
[B]Green Bomb[/B] Good, tastes a little fried-greeny.
[B]Hardin's Miniature [/B]Good, very flavorful, not especially sweet.
[B]Hillbilly[/B] Good.
[B]Lucky Tiger[/B] Good. Sweet with a bit of tang.
[B]Post Office Spoonful [/B] Good, like a full sized tomato.
[B]Rosella[/B] Good, very good.
[B]Sungold F1[/B] Good, lots of flavor, sweet, tart, everything.

The Bland: :|

[B]Andrew Rahart's
Bela
Ben's Ivory Pear
Bulgarian Oxheart
Carbon[/B] Bland but smokey
[B]Chef's Choice Orange
Chocolate Stripe [/B] Bland but OK
[B]Cuor di Bue [/B] Bland but good (Not sure what I meant here).
[B]Dwarf Mr. Snow
Dwarf Rosella Crimson
Gardener's Choice
George Detsikas Italian Red
Green Pear Cherry
Japanese Trifele Black
Moonshiner's Ball
Morado Vejer de la Frontera
Orange Strawberry
Park's Whopper CR Improved F1[/B]
[B]Pepe Jose [/B](one of two, I guess)[B]
Piker Vesy [/B] Bland but tomatoey
[B]Rebecca Allen[/B] Bland but good (again, puzzling, oxymoronic).
[B]Sandberg [/B]

The UGH-ly /puke:runh:

[B]Blue Cream
Cherokee Purple
Little Willie's Wiener
Tarasenko Hybrid[/B]

Everything else::?

[B]Campari[/B] acid only.
[B]Captain Lucky[/B] Tart-ish
[B]Faworyt [/B] Sharp, strong, OK
[B]Lucid Gem[/B] Tart.
[B]Matt's Wild Cherry[/B] Sweet & tangy but not tomatoey
[B]Mountain Glory [/B] Tart only.
[B]Pepe Jose [/B] Sweet & tomatoey (again, one of two?).
[B]Red Brandymaster[/B] No sweet.
[B]sunrise Bumblebee[/B] OK, not great
[B]Upstate [/B] Mild & sweet
[B]Wagner Blue Green [/B] Sweet & tangy (but for some reason, I didn't say good).
[B]Yellow Fire[/B] Sweet & mild.

I'm grateful when I can taste a tomato at all. I will probably attend every tasting I can. It's invaluable to find out which ones I'll be able to taste if I grow them.

Nan

How are these tastings usually conducted? Like how much do you get to eat? And is there salt available (I suppose you could bring yourself)? Since I eat my tomatoes with other food there is little relevance for me how they would taste without salt. I find that to taste good without salt it needs a certain amount of sweetness otherwise it will seem bland for example, even though it may taste awesome with it.
One normally can assess the otherwise very important aroma just based on smell, and more often than not its strength also, when a cut tomato smells really good, it always tastes good too to me.

Zipcode, tomato tastings are great!

First, the host/hostess invites people to the tasting. Those who grow tomatoes are encouraged to bring some of whatever is ripe. There were well over 50 varieties at the relatively small CHOPTAG tasting.

People may also bring food; there ought to at least be a palate cleanser such as crackers. Many times there's food enough for whole meals. Host ought to provide at least water.

Each variety of tomato from each garden gets its own paper plate. The variety name is written on the plate. A medium-sized tomato would be enough for a small tasting. Larger gatherings would require more. (If all you have is a small tomato, I guess you'd cut it into smaller pieces.) Tomatoes are cut or sliced or chunked into bite-sized or larger pieces. Cherry tomatoes are not cut, but piled on the plate.

Guests sample whatever tomatoes they like. Unless there's some very limited supply, I suppose nobody cares if you take more than one chunk of each.

Salt and pepper are usually provided, but you could always bring your own since it's important to you. Each guest samples whichever tomatoes he or she chooses. You eat them however you like; I suppose you could bring bread, mayonnaise or maple syrup if you wished. You're probably not alone in wanting to salt them.

Sometimes guests are asked to rate the tomatoes, or vote on them to determine the best-tasting consensus. There can be other contests, such as biggest, ugliest, prettiest tomato, etc.

Tomato growers who discover a good-tasting, new-to-them tomato, will want seeds. (Zip-close plastic bags may be provided but it's good to be prepared with your own.) Chunks of the tomato on the plate will be taken home by those who want the seeds.

The host/hostess is left with a ton of cut-up tomatoes (payment for hosting?) good food, and memories.

From CHOPTAG 2017:
[ATTACH]76855[/ATTACH]

A few more pictures of CHOPTAG 2017:
[URL]http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=45922[/URL]

Nan

Nan, thanks for that great description! I have never been to one of these either.

This was my first & I can't wait till next year!

Nan

Interesting. I have only grown two of those, Sungold and Cherokee Purple. Here, Sungold were okay this year, but the usual splits. Cherokee Purple were good and tomato sandwich stars, but not as good as last year.

My Sungolds are splitting like mad now, but early on they were fine.

Nan

I went to the tomato tasting we had in Texas once and only tried one tomato and dont remember what it was.:))
But I did help set up everything and put it away afterwards.
Fact of the matter or we shall say mater was I had already tried all of them anyway before and after.

What I cant understand is why mortgage lifter or orange Russian wasn't at your tasting.
For that matter NAR.:?!?:

Well, it was a rather small gathering.

Nan

[QUOTE=Nan_PA_6b;665632]My Sungolds are splitting like mad now, but early on they were fine.

Nan[/QUOTE]

Try Sunsugar, they don't split.