Giant Sicilian Paste

Father'sDaughter · July 22, 2013

I've had a tough time finding info on this variety, so I figured I'd post my results here and hopefully anyone else who has grown it will share their experience with it.

My seeds came from Knapps Fresh Veggies, apparently the only vendor currently offering it, and the seedlings started out very healthy. I planted out one plant which set a couple of early fruit before the weather began wreaking havoc--unusually warm weather in May, a cool and soggy June, followed by the July heat waves. The plants really took off in May and set a fair amount of fruit, got tall and bushy in June with few new blossoms, and then major blossom drop and now foliage disease hitting a lot earlier than usual. Unfortunately, the GSP is one of the three that are falling faster than the others. Fortunately, the two fruit it set started blushing last week and were finally completely ripe yesterday.

They have the same shape as the Franchi Giant Pear (which I am growing for the second time this year). The two I got were not very "giant" at a little over 4 ounces each. Since I don't yet have enough tomatoes to even think about breaking out the sauce pot, I decided to slice one up and see if it was worthy of eating for breakfast. It has very thick walls, and somewhat empty cavities with small gel sacs tucked in them. When scooping out the seeds to ferment and save, I realized that despite it's appearance of being dry, this was actually more on the juicy side for a paste. I usually find pastes a bit on the bland side until they are cooked, but this one had a good amount of "old fashioned" flavor to it. A sprinkling of kosher salt and we were ready to go! Thick slices on grilled English Muffins made for a very yummy breakfast.

I'm not sure if my results are typical for this variety, but for now I would put this in the class of pastes that are also good for fresh eating fresh. And I probably will give it another chance next year.

I failed to take pictures of the cut fruit, but here's the second one.

July 22, 2013	#1
Father'sDaughter Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: MA/NH Border Posts: 4,917	Giant Sicilian Paste I've had a tough time finding info on this variety, so I figured I'd post my results here and hopefully anyone else who has grown it will share their experience with it. My seeds came from Knapps Fresh Veggies, apparently the only vendor currently offering it, and the seedlings started out very healthy. I planted out one plant which set a couple of early fruit before the weather began wreaking havoc--unusually warm weather in May, a cool and soggy June, followed by the July heat waves. The plants really took off in May and set a fair amount of fruit, got tall and bushy in June with few new blossoms, and then major blossom drop and now foliage disease hitting a lot earlier than usual. Unfortunately, the GSP is one of the three that are falling faster than the others. Fortunately, the two fruit it set started blushing last week and were finally completely ripe yesterday. They have the same shape as the Franchi Giant Pear (which I am growing for the second time this year). The two I got were not very "giant" at a little over 4 ounces each. Since I don't yet have enough tomatoes to even think about breaking out the sauce pot, I decided to slice one up and see if it was worthy of eating for breakfast. It has very thick walls, and somewhat empty cavities with small gel sacs tucked in them. When scooping out the seeds to ferment and save, I realized that despite it's appearance of being dry, this was actually more on the juicy side for a paste. I usually find pastes a bit on the bland side until they are cooked, but this one had a good amount of "old fashioned" flavor to it. A sprinkling of kosher salt and we were ready to go! Thick slices on grilled English Muffins made for a very yummy breakfast. I'm not sure if my results are typical for this variety, but for now I would put this in the class of pastes that are also good for fresh eating fresh. And I probably will give it another chance next year. I failed to take pictures of the cut fruit, but here's the second one.