To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Tomato anecdotes
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 21:09:18 -0700
On Oct 24, 2006, at 7:03 AM, Jim Fruth wrote:
I spent six years selling at farmers' markets in California before
I
came to Minnesota. Californians actively sought new and different
vegetables and I didn't think Minnesotans would be any different.
They are!
I live in Berkeley so I'm in food heaven. Jim's right that customers
here love heirlooms, oddly colored and shaped fruits, etc. My favorite
tomato so far is Black Krim. Though the farmers at our market are
pretty good about cutting up samples, I bought Black Krim from Berkeley
Horticultural Nursery taste untasted. Berkeley Hort does a reasonably
good job of labeling their tomatoes with a description that includes
something about the taste. Whatever they wrote about Black Krim
intrigued me and I bought it.
I have been having trouble growing tomatoes. I've very close to the
Bay and in the line of the fog. I'm not sure whether it's fungus or a
virus but something has been slowly killing my tomatoes. They fruit, I
get the first couple few, and the others never really get fully ripe.
So I only had about 5 Black Krim last year but they were HEAVENLY. I
must not be the only person in Berkeley who thinks so because I was a
little late looking for tomato starts and Black Krim had sold out all
over town.
One of the things that might make the difference between (certain
denizens of) Californians and Minnesotans is that major cities in
California tend to have restaurant scenes with chefs who popularize
little known herbs, greens, vegetables and fruits. So maybe some folks
turn up their noses at purple tomatoes until such and such chef gets
rave writeup after rave writeup about her purple tomato bruschetta or
ketchup or salsa or whatever.