{"id":12956,"date":"2014-08-27T10:05:49","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T14:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=12956"},"modified":"2014-08-27T09:15:35","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T13:15:35","slug":"on-your-table-time-for-heirloom-tomatoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=12956","title":{"rendered":"On Your Table: Time for Heirloom Tomatoes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late August is the peak of ripeness for these local wonders<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Cathy Branciaroli<\/strong>, Food Correspondent, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Tomatoes\"<\/a>At the peak of ripeness, a garden tomato is one of the things that make life worthwhile.\u00a0 Luscious, sweet, tart or even spicy and always juicy, now is the time to catch tomatoes at their best.\u00a0 Since earlier in August, all kinds of tomatoes are coming into season, ready to fix on salads, BLT sandwiches or just biting into like an apple.\u00a0 Seasonally delicious tomatoes want only slicing and sprinkling with a dash of salt.\u00a0 No other embellishments are needed.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have a backyard garden of your own, locally grown tomatoes are now available at roadside stands and farmers markets.\u00a0 And for a real treat, try heirloom varieties which are genetically predisposed toward flavor rather than the perfect red color and shape of hybrid varieties.\u00a0 Not to take anything away from a just-picked Beefsteak or Better Boy tomato, but I can tell you that once you\u2019ve tasted an heirloom tomato you will never go back.<\/p>\n

So what are heirloom tomatoes anyway? \u00a0They are heritage varieties passed down through generations and grown from last season\u2019s seeds. With exotic names like Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple or even Stump of the World (yes, there really is such a variety), they can be had in a rainbow of colors including pink, purple and yellow.\u00a0 Shapes can be downright homely, lumpy or knobby.\u00a0 But it\u2019s the taste that wins the day – zesty, tart, brightly tangy, candy-sweet or slightly smoky, flavors many of us never knew tomatoes could have.<\/p>\n

One of the areas largest selections of heirloom tomatoes can be found at H.G. Haskell\u2019s SIW Vegetables roadside stand along Route 100 near Chadds Ford.\u00a0 He grows more than 75 varieties of the fragile, low-yielding plants and another 10 varieties of cherry type heirlooms.<\/p>\n

Farmers like Haskell are reviving these long-neglected plant varieties\u00a0that don\u2019t stand up well to lengthy storage and long-distance shipping of large-scale commercial production.\u00a0 His tomatoes are picked ripe.\u00a0 Not vine ripe where the fruit is picked as soon as its color turns from green to something like red, but red ripe.\u00a0 \u201cThis way you get tomatoes bursting with their full flavor and aroma.\u00a0 They taste best that way and since they only travel from our fields to our farm stand, they are as fresh as can be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Haskell is a third generation farmer growing not just tomatoes but according to customers, the area\u2019s best tasting fresh corn and all kinds of old fashioned vegetables on land originally owned by the Pyle family along the Brandywine River.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are blessed with our summer conditions and our good soil that help heirlooms flourish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

How do you know if a tomato is truly ripe?\u00a0 Sniff its stem end, he advised.\u00a0 The aroma should just shout, \u201cTomato\u201d.\u00a0 And never, ever put them in the refrigerator unless you enjoy mealy, cardboard-like produce.<\/p>\n

While I haven\u2019t sampled all of Haskell\u2019s heirloom varieties, here are some thoughts about which ones to try.<\/p>\n

Green Zebra can be identified by its tawny color and green stripes.\u00a0 Tart and zingy, these tomatoes are smaller size fruit with insides that are firm and meaty.\u00a0 Cherokee Purple is among the most familiar of the \u201cblack\u201d tomatoes, large and full of flesh, it has a dense, juicy texture.<\/p>\n

My favorites are the cherry tomatoes.\u00a0 At SIW they are sold in quart containers, crowded with a riot of colors and shapes including round, pear and plum.\u00a0\u00a0 There is even one variety, fleetingly available, of pea sized, achingly sweet, bright red cherries resembling red currant berries. I will slice cherry tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and basil leaves, drizzling them with a little extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar for a classic Italian salad. Or they can be roasted with just a dash of olive oil and garlic to enhance a summer tomato sauce or to pop in the freezer to save for a winter\u2019s day.<\/p>\n

Take a drive along lovely Route 100 to visit SIW Vegetables and explore for yourself.\u00a0 SIW is open seven days a week starting at 10AM.\u00a0 It\u2019s located at 4317 South Creek Rd and its website often announces what is fresh that week.\u00a0 Check out SIW-Vegetables.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late August is the peak of ripeness for these local wonders By\u00a0Cathy Branciaroli, Food Correspondent, The Times At the peak of ripeness, a garden tomato is one of the things that make life worthwhile.\u00a0 Luscious, sweet, tart or even spicy and always juicy, now is the time to catch tomatoes at their best.\u00a0 Since earlier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[4613,5115,5116,5114],"class_list":["post-12956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-featured","tag-food","tag-heirloom","tag-local-produce","tag-tomato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12957,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12956\/revisions\/12957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}