Dan's Papers - August 8, 2008 - What a Tomato! Heirlooms in Brown, Green, Purple

There's something sexy about gardening. It's a relationship few can describe in words, but when you see a book like Amy Goldman's The Heirloom Tomato, it's clear that the amount of time, diligence and patience that one commits to tilling the earth creates an unparalleled, zealous bond.

The book provides information, "From Garden to Table: Recipes, Portraits, And History of the World's Most Beautiful Fruit" and welcomes a range of readers - the woman who just likes to eat tomatoes, to the chef who's searching for sweeter recipes and, ultimately, to the avid heirloom fanatic in search of a seed source fix. Aside from the wealth of knowledge passed down in this book, the photographs, captured by one of the world's foremost still life photographers, Victor Schrager, are stunning. Schrager explains, "I continue to be intrigued and fulfilled by the range of pictures that can be pulled out of the small parcel of space in front of my camera. The results of positioning objects in this space, playing sharp edges against soft, and organizing planes and clouds of color mean the world to me."

Goldman, who will be signing her book at Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton this Saturday, August 9 at 5 p.m. (with refreshments and tomato bruschetta), has tomatoes in her blood. Her first garden and tomato plants were grown in her parents "drafty old greenhouse (minus half the glass)" in Oyster Bay. They've since moved to East Hampton, while Goldman resides on her farm in Rheinbeck, just southeast of Woodstock, New York. With a warming back-story about her cousin Myrtle "Tillie" Lewis and her family's Brooklyn grocery store, Goldman's Italian-American, Goldman reveals her 35-year love affair with gardening, where the beauty of tomatoes is more than skin deep for her "tasting is believing."

According to Goldman, many people have misconceptions about heirloom tomatoes. Unless you are going to the local farm stands or somewhere that supports local produce, you're most likely eating the standard, round ball-like, industrial tomatoes. Heirloom tomatoes are open-pollinated varieties. This means that if the seeds produced from the plant are properly saved, they'll produce the same variety year after year. This cannot be done with hybrids, which are a cross between two separate varieties, as the seed produced from those plants will either be sterile, or start to revert back to the parent plants. Goldman says of the poor reputation, "some think they don't grow well, or they are the road kill of the tomato world...soft, mushy and uneatable. It's simply not true." What's closer to the truth, Goldman explains, is the fact that they have an "indeterminate growth rate, they grow big and it accounts for their wonderful taste because with more growth area there's more photosynthesis and a more sugary, savory tomato grows. It's a huge payoff."

The Heirloom Tomato explains how to grow tomatoes, then discuses the details of tomatoes, then gives beautiful portraits of currant and cherry, ribbed, globe, beefsteak, pear and plum, oxheart and the color groups - yes, they are black tomatoes, if you didn't already know. Not to mention, brown, green, purple, pink, orange and yellow - the Skittles logo, "taste the rainbow" really applies to the natural world.

Looking to find a new way to dish those tomatoes? Or how about somewhere to find new and old seed varieties? Not a problem. It's all spelled out in this book, with recipes, seed sources and advocacy groups. "I love the open-faced tomato and sunny-side up egg sandwich and the tomato, eggplant and mint salsa. I am making it today for lunch," Goldman said.

A board member at the New York Botanical Garden and chair of the board of the Seed Savers Exchange seedsavers.org and also a clinical psychologist with her Ph.D., the research aspect of the heirloom tomatoes was fun to do. "I am sort of a gardening nerd and that's how I found out about the real story behind the Red Brandywine variety," Goldman said. With misinformation floating around about the Red Brandywine, many were uncertain as to whether it was originally red or pink or what. Calling up Cornell's Ethel Zoe Bailey Horticultural Catalogue Collection, she asked librarian Sherry Vance for back issue of Johnson and Stokes dating back to 1889. She then discovered the information needed to conclude that "Brandywine was regular-leafed as well as red."

Goldman attributes many of her findings to Ken Ettlinger of Flanders-based Long Island Plant and Seed Company. "Ettlinger is an innovative seed collector and a hero in creating new varieties and educating the next generations." His name is associated with some of the most luscious heirloom tomatoes, including Alberto Shutters, "the world tiniest tomato."

Goldman's need to seed is apparent and anyone looking to cultivate or make one hell of a tomato fritatta should check out the book. "It's really been my mission to preserve agricultural diversity and I want readers to use this book as a preservation tool. A garden is always brewing in my mind."