Thread: Muchamiel
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Old August 8, 2015   #18
carolyn137
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Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AdrianaG View Post
Since I recently joined TV I am slowly catching up on old threads. I am amused that nobody has mentioned that "mucha miel" in Spanish means "much honey" which would imply that it is a sweet tomato. Yet everybody here says it is tart. I'm curious how iMuchamiel compares to the regular, ostensibly more tart Spanish tomatoes? Brix info might be interesting.
Yes, I do know that mucha miel means honey and who and why it was named that I have no idea, as you can see my general comment in Post #7 about tart varieties being preferred in Spain. They prefer eating underripe ones that have green shoulders and initially I thought that was why they were tart, but no, let them ripen up and still the same.

Maybe the honey part was b'c they had to dribble good bee honey on them to make them sweeter. And for home growers in Spain I doubt any of them do Brix levels, the commercial tomato producers who now grown mainly hybrid varieties yes, but I don't know the specific F1's they grow. Spain is a major source of tomato powder and other tomato products in Europe.

And yes, I have visited Spain.

Going from Tania's list of Spanish tomatoes these are the ones I have grown:

Dos Mercados
Monserrat
Muchamiel
Ras
Tre Cantos

And I've saved the best for last.

In Spain it was called Huevos De Toro, but it turns out that there was more than ONE named the same from info given to us here at Tville by Ilex, who is from Spain.

I won't go into all the details, far too complicated, but a red one made its way to France where it was renamed by Robin as Couilles de Taureau and I first met it, if you will, as a trade with Reinhard Kraft in Germany whom I've known for a very long time.

I loved it and sent seeds for it to the vendors I normally send seeds to for trial. Superb taste and also production for such a large fruited Variety.

Here's Tania's page for Huevos De Toro;

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Couilles_De_Taureau

Note that she does not list Couilles in her major list, only saying that it is the same as Huevos De Taureau, and it was not renamed by Angelo. She also said she hoped the original name could be kept, but Tania didn't know that there were others in Spain also named the same and not all were red, again, that info from Ilex.

I was kind of in the midst of a kerfuffle about this variety when a Tville member insisted that the history was wrong, I then contacted Tomato Addict, Terry, who owns that wonderful seed site called the Secret Seed Cartel, who is fluent in French to find out what she could from her French contacts and she visits France at least once a year.

And it was she who found out the whole story and e-mailed me all about it.

There is one seed site I will not name that does have the wrong history, I won't go into that at all.


Summary?

All theSpanish varieties I've grown with the above exception have not worked well for me as to taste, but I could also say the same thing about most of the older English varieties as well.

All to say that Couilles de Taureau, nee a RED Huevos D Toro, is the only exception to tartness that I know of except for what are called colgar, or winter tomatoes, which have both Italian and Spanish origins , I haven't grown them but others have and like them very much since the vines are pulled out and strung up and the ripe tomatoes last a very long time. Someone once told me that they harken back to the times when there were no fridges, no way to really preserve tomatoes for the winter.

Hope that helps,

Carolyn
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