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Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

Posted by: on Aug 31, 2013


What you might read about here below….

Lovely Tomato Recipes…. including ways to preserve tomatoes (Bulk Order Tomatoes Here)

Tomato Tasting Results from the Tomato Festival. The votes are in…

Tomato Trot Race Results.

…Read on

tomato festival

The festival scene, and on the left our wonderful Event Organizer Maria Lane who made it all happen.

We just wrapped on Tomato Festival 2013. Thank you to all who came out – we had over 2,000 guests! Though the fest has passed, we are still swimming in tomatoes – it’s the peak of the season! Our farmstands and markets now have tons of heirloom, red, cherry, and paste types for you to try. And you can also order heirlooms, slicers and pastes in bulk for preserving.

What happened at the Festival? Check out the photos on Facebook.

Tomato Recipes for the Peak Season

We all have favorite tomato recipes. Here are some of ours. Click the links to read the recipes.

ratatouille

Ratatouille in the pan.

Roasted Tomato Basil Salad Dressing
Fresh Tomato-Corn Salsa
Tomato Basil Salad  
Panzanella: Tomato and Bread Salad 
Dekal’s Tomato Bean Soup
Gazpacho
Husk Cherry and Cherry Tomato Salsa
Ratatouille Outside the Box
Garlic and Herb Ratatouille

Recipes for Preserving Tomatoes

Oven Roasted Tomatoes
Tomato Sauce Farmer-Style – the recipe Sarah Voiland did for the Tomato Canning Demo at the fest.
Canned Plum Tomatoes

We have half bushels of heirlooms, reds, or paste tomatoes that you can order for pickup in the Boston area and around Western MA at our farmstands, markets and CSA pickups. Everyone is welcome to order.

The Famous Tomato Tasting  ~ Results 2013

tomato tasting

Tomato Tasting at the Tomato Festival, 2013.

There they were – the many many varieties of tomatoes, ready to taste. We laid them out in the tasting barn in sections by type with the categories of Cherry, Paste, Heirloom type, and Red Slicer. Unbeknownst to many there is also another category in our farmer minds – the Cocktail Tomato (which we break out in the results). What is a cocktail tomato… not quite a regular tomato, not quite a cherry tomato, a little bigger than a bite.

If you came to the tasting at the Tomato Festival, you received six stickers to assign to your favorite tomatoes (3 stickers to first favorite, 2 to second, and 1 to third). As the tasting goes along you can see which ones are working it by the collection of stickers on their card. I wonder if we had the votes hidden if it would affect the winners. It is hard to taste all the varieties laid out there anyway, so the outcome is skewed by which tomatoes people choose to taste more. Cherry tomatoes anybody? And I would say the tasting also favors those tomatoes with fresh eating qualities, as opposed to cooking or saucing qualities.

The votes are in. The public has spoken.

Overall Top 20 – Type, Variety Name, Total Votes

Cherry Sungold 130
Cherry Matt’s Wild 113
Cherry Lucia 87
Cherry Black Cherry 79
Cherry Jasper 67
Cherry Esterina 52
Cherry Supersweet 100 49
Cocktail Tomatoes Indigo Rose 49
Cherry Sunpeach 37
Heirloom Type Watermelon Beefsteak 37
Cherry Coyote 34
Heirloom Type Juane Flamme 32
Heirloom Type Striped German 31
Red Slicer Hybrids Mountain Merit 29
Cherry Golden Sweet 28
Heirloom Type Pink Beauty 28
Heirloom Type White Tomesol 28
Heirloom Type Paul Robeson 27
Heirloom Type Anna Russian 26
Cherry Sakura 24
Heirloom Type Hog Heart 23

Thanks very much to our many tomato chopping volunteers, especially Alicia and the Malek family, and very especially Matt and Linda Soffen – who help organize the tasting. Thanks Micky McKinley, Stephanie Clay, Dot Moore, Marilee Booth, Les Gagne, and our other very helpful volunteers!

Top Tomatoes in Each Category

sungold

Sungolds in the sun.

Sungold won best of Cherry Tomatoes – shocking, I know.
Indigo Rose won in the Cocktail Tomato category.
Watermelon Beefsteak took top honors for Heirloom style tomato. What a name – wouldn’t have thought watermelon steak would be so tasty.
Mountain Merit proved most meritorious in the Red Slicing category.
And a three-way tie for the Paste Title, between Gilberte, Granadero, and San Marzano. Albeit with only four votes each. Something tells me they taste better as sauce.

There were some previously reigning champions missing from the tasting table this year, either due to lack of ripeness from the cool weather or other factors involved in harvesting thousands of tomatoes. For example, Federle won the overall tasting one year, despite being a paste tomato. Come taste them next year! And you may well taste them this year if you order paste tomatoes in bulk as they are now ripening like crazy.

If you would like to see the full results from the tasting, click to see the PDF of Tomato Tasting 2013 – All Results.

Tomato Trot 5K Race Results

race

John McCarthy takes first place for men in Tomato Trot 2013.

Congratulations to John McCarthy for first place in the men’s category and Samantha Presnal for first place in the women’s category! A cross-country style trail race through farm fields. Did you run the race and want to see your time? Click here to see the race results.

Trot race photos on Red Fire’s Facebook.

Lots of race photos by Northeast Race Photo.

Congratulations to all runners for a great race!

 

Thanks to all for a great festival! It will happen again next year, round the same time, when the tomatoes start to weigh heavy and ripe on the vines.

Stay tuned for more recipes, stories, coupons and events from the farm with our e-news – you can sign up here.

stand stock

Steve keeps the farmstand stocked with many cherry tomatoes during the festival.

~ Sarah Voiland