The Heirloom'd Tomato

I love heirloom tomatoes.  I think they are delicious.  And they sound fancy.  Thus, despite the fact that my husband hates tomatoes and literally gags when he eats them, I am very excited about one of the newest additions to my garden:  an heirloom tomato plant of the "Great White" variety.  I hope it produces lots of heirloom tomatoes, all for me.

I am particularly excited because every description I have read about the Great White heirloom tomato calls it an "almost perfect" tomato (whatever that means) with a delicious "creamy texture" (also a weird description for a tomato plant).  I chose it because of its "near perfection" (that sounds pretty good) and because the tomatoes will be smaller than some of the other varieties available like "Brandywine."  Plants with smaller tomatoes do better in pots than the larger tomato'd varietals.  The Great Whites are still pretty big, up to a pound, so I don't know if that counts as small, but some of the other types have 2lb tomatoes (I hear Evan gagging in the background).  

Anyway, here is Great White in its prepubescent state:

I hope the pot that killed Jasmine doesn't kill you too...

A bigger and more interesting question than "are heirloom tomatoes awesome?" (A: yes) is "why go heirloom?"  What is the difference between heirloom tomatoes and "regular" tomatoes?  

Well, there was a fascinating recent article in the New York Times about the science behind it.  About 70 years ago, tomato breeders discovered a mutation that caused tomatoes to have a uniformly red color to them.  Because of the commercial appeal of this, they bred this mutation widely into tomatoes and now pretty much all tomatoes that you see in the store have this gene.  What they didn't know at the time was that this mutation disabled chloroplasts, creating a more uniform color, but these chloroplasts were responsible for sugar production.  Reducing the sugar production (by 20%) resulted in less flavorful tomatoes.  

So heirloom tomatoes produce a bit less fruit and may be more susceptible to disease than newer varieties which are bred to be advantageous in those regards... But heirloom tomatoes lack the aforementioned gene mutation, and as a result, are tastier...

Omg.  Isn't your mouth just watering?  (The above is a recipe with burrata from TheKitchn, which is a great blog).

So with any luck, in approximately 85 days with some sunshine and water and TLC, I will soon have delicious near perfect creamy tomatoes that look like this:

(photo from gardenharvestsupply.com)

Wish me luck, I cannot wait!