Flavors of Tomato Season

On the grounds of an elegant old stone structure, under a blue and white canopy, they circled around tables, switching from a taste, to a cracker to cleanse their palette, then onto the next taste.

There was Cabernet Hybrid, Scarlet Red, and technical sounding BHN 876.

“ People come to expand their repertoire, ” said Master Gardener Evelyn Schoch.  “ You get exposed to new flavors.”

Evelyn liked the Cabernet, “ It had a nice balance of sweet and acid,” she said. But this cab was served in slices.  It was a tomato.  She hopes to grow Cabernet at home next year.  Who knew?

Franklin County Master Gardeners hosted more than 200 people who tasted 34 tomato varieties and ranked them during their annual Tomato Tasting in Chambersburg on Wednesday, August 26, 2009.  Held at the Penn State Cooperative Extension office in Chambersburg, the event served to educate gardeners and growers.  

Visitors to the free tasting were asked to rate the many varieties on a scale from 1 to 5 on both flavor and aesthetics.  The results will be tabulated via excel spreadsheets and melded with results from food enthusiasts who taste tomatoes at the Chambersburg facility weekly. The results will be available from Penn State.

Tasters were given a clip board and a yellow paper that listed , simply, tomato A through tomato ZG  followed by numbers 1 to 5.  Tasters ranked the tomatoes as they made their way through the tomato gauntlet.  Five was a rockin’ tomato score.

Family members of the Easley tribe, of Waynesboro, PA, arrived together to the taste.  After grading about a third of the tomatoes, Junior Easley, 13, proved braver than his grandfather, Robert Averella.

Spying a slightly odd looking, ruffled green and red tomato, Averella commented to his grandson with seeming uncertainty about tasting the weird colored tomato, “ It looks like a pepper…..”

Junior challenged his granddad, “ Taste it. Taste it. It’s good.”

Robert listened and tried it with a happy result, but might not have rated the aesthetics of that tomato particularly high.

Franklin county Master Gardeners staffing the event said they heard many interesting comments ranging from yum, yum, yum….  to yuck.

After 30 some tomatoes, organizer, Steve Bogash, Regional Horticulture Educator with Penn State Cooperative Extension, said there might be some, “severe taste bud fatigue.”

The tomatoes were chosen from the 72 varieties grown by Bogash at Landisville Research Farm. Many of the varieties tasted were hybrids and new to the market.  Organizers included about ten tomatoes that had finished high in previous years tests.  Two tomatoes held an honorary spot in the taste.  They’d been retired as perennial winners.  They were Sun Gold, a super sweet cherry tomato and Favorita, also, a cherry tomato.   Cherry tomatoes were popular and advice to eat them straight off the vine filled the air.

The final results will be available through Penn State Cooperative Extension after the end of the growing season. Tasters I spoke to said a couple varieties rose to the top.

George Weigel, garden writer and designer, liked the Napa Grape cherry tomato.  I heard others agree with George and comment on the sweetness of that nice, slightly plum-shaped cherry tomato.

As common with husbands and wives, Becky and Ritchie Easley had differing tastes.  Becky really liked Mountain Magic, Brandy Boy and Paul Robeson.  Richie liked Pineapple, Super Bush and Sweet Seedless.  They’ll have to bump up their usual garden of 4 tomato plants to 6 next year.

And like I said, Evelyn likes her Cabernet.