Tomatoes, Slicing

Our slicing varieties of tomatoes represent hybrids developed for qualities like early ripening, uniform fruit size, and flavor. As such, they are generally the first tomatoes to appear in your share in the summer, and slicing varieties will continue to fruit until cold weather kills the plants in the fall.

Cooking Tips

These tomatoes are tasty raw as well as cooked. Add sliced tomato to sandwiches, salads, bagels with cream cheese, or whatever you like. Try adding diced tomato to salsa, stew, soup, or casserole. Make bruschetta, oven roasted tomatoes, BLTs, or grilled cheese sandwiches. Although these tomatoes could be used for pasta sauce, the San Marzano paste tomatoes will make for a heartier and thicker sauce.

Storage Tips

Don't put your tomatoes in the refrigerator; rather, store them somewhere in your kitchen, away from direct sunlight, where they will not be damaged. Tomatoes will continue to sweeten and ripen for several days. Perhaps the best way to store these tomatoes for the long term would be to freeze them as a salsa or sauce.

Nutrition

Tomatoes are full of vitamins A and C, caratenoids and beta carotene. They also contain an antioxidant called lycopene which recent studies have found effective at fighting cancer.

History

In spite of their association with Italian food, tomatoes are a New World crop that never existed in pre-Columbian Europe. They are native to western South America, and traveled north to Mexico where many new cultivars were developed. After their arrival in Europe they became popular in Italy and Spain, but were met with disdain in more northern cultures. The Spanish spread tomatoes throughout the Caribbean and the Philippines, and it is thought that the first widely cultivated varieties in the United States first arrived via the Caribbean in the 19th century.