Saladette or Cocktail

[Cole_Robbie]

Originally Posted by Nan_PA_6b

Wild Tiger. It's green with red & gold streaks, and it's delicious! Very strongly flavorful, sweet & tart together.

That reminds me of Amurskiy Tiger, but it has no green, just a bicolor stripe:
https://www.google.com/search?q=toma...u3wanz0Z2ehEEM

[RandyG]

The term saladette originally came from the name of an open pollinted variety named 'Saladette' that was released from Texas A&M years ago. It is a small roma suitable for slicing for salads. Small plums or even larger ones have typically been referred to as saladettes. Cocktail tomatoes come from a European designation where these small round tomatoes are popular. A good way to produce hybrid cocktail types is to cross a cherry size with a large tomato, and the hybrid comes out skewed toward the smaller fruit size because small fruit size is dominant in crosses. I developed 'Mountain Magic' cocktail type hybrid by crossing a high sugar grape tomato x a large fruited early blight/late blight resistant line, NC 2CELBR. 'Campari' cocktail tomato hybrid comes from the same type of cross.

[Fred Hempel]

Randy,

Thanks for the background on the names/history. So much info in one small post.

[Fusion_power]

I tend to differentiate based on flavor. Campari is a good example of a cluster tomato with diameter up to 2 inches that I refer to as a "salad" tomato because the flavor highly complements the salad.

The toughest problem to solve in breeding a good salad tomato is to get the sweetness right. Sungold is on the extreme end of this with IMO too much sweetness for a good salad. Hibor is an orange pear shaped tomato with very high sweetness and relatively less flavor. I have seed started to make a few crosses with Hibor to see if I can move that sweetness into a more flavorful background.

I crossed Tastiheart X Lycopimp a couple of years ago and grew the F1's out in 2018. The fruit were 1 inch diameter with excellent flavor and the most intense fire engine red color I've ever seen in a tomato. I expect it to segregate into a range of tomato sizes and shapes in the F2. With a bit of work, I hope to stabilize the flavor and color into a line to be used in F1's with a sweet variety. Perhaps it will produce one of those outstandingly good tomatoes for a salad.

Of the varieties I grow, Akers West Virginia has intense flavor that I would love to see in a slightly smaller fruit. I may cross it to something like Dr. Carolyn Pink to see if the combination produces that intense whirl of flavor in a smaller fruit.

[bower]

I like saladette or cocktail size tomatoes too, and as RandyG pointed out, they are easy to make when you cross a larger tomato with a cherry... so I have several at F5 seed now that fall into that category.

I can see how this size of tomato would appeal to restaurants that serve salad. The longer shaped ones like your Blush and Tigers, Fred, they are gorgeous just sliced in two longways (and of course they can be cut the other way for lots of little rounds). I like them for pizza for the same reason, and I like that saladette or cocktail tomatoes are easily sliced when frozen, while bigger tomatoes have a longer wait time/rinse requirement before they can be nicely cut and tend to thaw unevenly making them harder to use for pizza and such.

Another thing about cocktail tomatoes, for salad purposes if you simply quarter a 'mini beef' or large cherry type like Karma Pink, you will have consistent taste quality right through your salad, because, I don't know if others have noticed but you don't necessarily get the same flavor from the top and bottom of a tomato (especially larger ones). The whole flavor is best appreciated by cutting a chunk that includes top and bottom, as in a quartered (or halved) small tomato. And no texture differences either, which you might have with a large fruit that is chopped up.


You also lose the beauty of a big beef interior if it's chopped up salad size. Better to use it for an open faced sandwich, and leave salads to cocktails and saladettes.

[natural]

Bulgarian Triumph is a great 'saladette' size tomato for growing for market. Great flavor as well.

Bill

[MissMoustache]

Ciskos Botermo was a good one in 2015 and 2016. It gave mostly saladette size with some large cherries. It's a pretty red and yellow stripe with some gold.

I love Jaune Flamme too. Beautiful color.

[frogsleap farm]

For round shaped tomatoes I use currant, cherry, golf, pool ball, baseball and softball, with sm or lrg prefixes for those between classes and flattened or heart added when appropriate. It's more more objective than saladette, cocktail, etc. - everyone knows the size of the reference objects. We will typically have more than one person taking notes in nurseries, so objective criteria are particularly useful. I wish there were such a thing for flavor ratings!

[zipcode]

Here in Europe they're called cocktail. 50-70 grams. Available in stores, from Nl or Fr usually. They are usually really good, they have stronger taste than bigger tomatoes but lack the sweetness of cherries (which is mostly good for people here).
Very easy to get home made quality F1s in this size, I started doing it a few years ago and I recommend it.

[MrBig46]

Maybe those balls are a good idea, but not for me. Actually, I never held one of those balls in my hand. Just watching TV on golf - my favorite program.
70 g for cocktail tomato seems too much to me. But we all have it set differently.
Vladimír

[Worth1]

Y'all forgot bowling ball size.

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by frogsleap farm

For round shaped tomatoes I use currant, cherry, golf, pool ball, baseball and softball, with sm or lrg prefixes for those between classes and flattened or heart added when appropriate. It's more more objective than saladette, cocktail, etc. - everyone knows the size of the reference objects. We will typically have more than one person taking notes in nurseries, so objective criteria are particularly useful. I wish there were such a thing for flavor ratings!

I guess you could bore a hole in a beefsteak, put a straw through it, plop it on top of a bloody mary glass and call it a "cocktail" tomato. To me, a cocktail tomato would be more "olive sized" served with a drink on a plastic skewer (smaller than a cherry type) ... a saladette is a cherry size or larger but much less than a sandwich slicer.

[MrBig46]

A dish consisting of small pieces of seafood or fruits, typically served cold at the beginning of a meal as an hors d'oeuvre.
a shrimp cocktail
Vladimír

[Fred Hempel]

Thanks for all of the suggestions!!!

Still thinking about the terms saladette vs cocktail

The terms seem to overlap in popular usage, but some reserve "saladette" for dryer tomatoes (essentially large grapes).

I think I am going with saladette -- in part because it is a tomato-specific term. Cocktail is a term with other uses (which may imply things to people).

Also, for me, saladette is anything between a large cherry tomato and "medium"-sized tomato, without limitations based on shape or type of interior flesh.

And, I think the term saladette implies use in salads, which is where this size tomato shines. I hate salad bars with whole grape or cherry tomatoes. You can't pick them up with your fork. In my salads I like a quartered small tomato, because they are easy to eat, and easy to cut up.

[Fred Hempel]

Originally Posted by bower

I like saladette or cocktail size tomatoes too, and as RandyG pointed out, they are easy to make when you cross a larger tomato with a cherry... so I have several at F5 seed now that fall into that category.

I can see how this size of tomato would appeal to restaurants that serve salad. The longer shaped ones like your Blush and Tigers, Fred, they are gorgeous just sliced in two longways (and of course they can be cut the other way for lots of little rounds). I like them for pizza for the same reason, and I like that saladette or cocktail tomatoes are easily sliced when frozen, while bigger tomatoes have a longer wait time/rinse requirement before they can be nicely cut and tend to thaw unevenly making them harder to use for pizza and such.

I like Blush and the Tigers in salads too. When we are sorting, Blush and the Tigers often go into the "saladette" boxes. Particularly early in the season.

But, if we are short on "cherry" tomatoes, they go in those boxes.