Yes, today's post is about my love of a new type of tomato, ha ha ha! But before I launch into my new love, I want to thank everyone for your support over the last couple of weeks as I am slowly coming to terms with my dad's health issues and what this means not only for my parents, but for my whole family. (I realised today that I have not blogged in more than a week, which is unusual for me.) It has been nice to have some time away from my usual committments but I am eager to get back into blogging as I do find it therapeutic writing my rather eclectic range of posts!
Image from Wikipedia
So...back to my planned topic, the kumato tomato. I was recently introduced to this tomato by my mum (who didn't know the name of the tomato because she had bought it at a local market). I have to admit that my girls were a bit dubious about the "brown tomatoes" and I was reluctant to taste it because I thought it was the "Black Russian" variety of tomato which I do not like. However, mum assured me that she had been given a taste test and that these tomatoes were delicious, so I gave it a go. And wow was I surprised - they were really sweet!
It wasn't until my husband bought a package of "gourmet" tomatoes from the supermarket that I could put a name to my newly discovered tomato. The label on the packaging declared these oddly brown tomatoes to be "Kumato tomatoes", and let me tell you that for a store bought tomato, they taste fantastic (as opposed to the usual bland, underripe offerings from our supermarkets)!
A quick Google search for Kumato tomatoes yielded some interesting facts about this "new breed" of tomato from both Wikipedia and the Kumato tomato website. It is a commercially developed tomato breed, which unfortunately is not available for avid green thumbs to grow at home (I assume that this means the tomatoes do not grow true to seed, but maybe I'll test that out for myself). It's surprising flavour and sweetness are due to the tomato containing higher levels of fructose than regular tomatoes and the tomato colour ranges from dark brown to a "golden green" with streaks of red here and there.
As you can see in the photo above, my husband likes to try and grow some vegetables in our limited garden space, and tomatoes are one of his favourites to grow. I really enjoy being able to eat fresh, sun-ripened tomatoes every summer and bemoan the lack of flavourful tomatoes during the winter months. So this should explain to you why I am just a little excited about finding a store bought tomato which tastes as good as home grown ones!
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