The cuurent fad for so called black tomatoes started back in the mid to late 90's and is still going on today as I see it. Some areas of the country were on to it ASAP and others have lagged behind. If I pull out one of my SSE YEarbooks from the early 90's, which I'm not going to do b'c then the pile collapses, falls into the next pile of them and that collapses, etc, there were less than FIVE black varieties listed and now it's way up over maybe 150 although I didn't take the time to count; some in the other color section and some in the pink/purple section.
Several of us had predicted that the next fad would be for the green when ripes and that has come to pass.
The problem I see is that when there's a fad there are folks who change names of varieties to make something look unique and that certainly happened with the many blacks along the way, and I suspect that the same thing will be happening shortly with the green when ripes.
A lot of the blacks aren't family heirlooms at all. They're the result of natural crossing and selections from that cross. And some have been deliberately bred.
In the long run if you like the taste of something run with it, but with all that's gone on in the black and green when ripe tomato world don't bet on each variety being unique and for sure don't assume that all of them are family heirlooms, b'c they aren't.
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Carolyn
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