I know, I know – I’ve been
off-line for a few days. My oldest
daughter was here visiting from New Mexico and I spent all my time with
her. Plus I have a couple of new books
………..
So, what exciting has been
happening? HA! I live in Wharton, you know. We don’t have much “exciting” here. However, this past Thursday, I did attend an
interesting ‘fest’.
Every year, the Wharton
Garden Club, (of which I am a long-time member) has an annual Tomato Fest. It is the
last meeting of the year and always in June.
All members are invited to participate by bringing a selection of
homegrown tomatoes in an effort of discover the Best Tasting
Tomato and the Biggest Tomato in
Wharton County.
Our master of ceremonies is another
long-time member and he shares a few interesting and little-known tomato facts
---
A
tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable. It’s
a fruit because it has seeds inside. And, yes, that makes cucumbers, squash,
green beans and pumpkins fruits also.
Weird but true.
Tomatoes
are not only red – they are also pink, orange, yellow, white, green and purple.
Then, he warms up the crowd
with some tomato jokes ---
Q:
What did the papa tomato say to the baby tomato?
A:
“Hurry and ketchup!”
Q:
Why did the tomato go out with a prune?
A:
Because he couldn’t find a date.
And, lastly, he lays out the
rules and parameters of the tasting ---
This
is a blind taste test. Those
participating in the tasting go around the table, eat one of the cut pieces and
then rate it from one to 10. One is the
very worst tomato you’ve ever had (tastes like paper) and 10 is the very best
(mmm mmm good). The plates of cut up
tomatoes are not identified by name or grower.
No cheating here.
After everyone is full of
tomatoes, he goes around and adds up the scores for each tomato, averages them
and ultimately determines to best tasting 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
place tomatoes. This year the winners
were all named Bob. Obviously, as one winner said, if you want to win, you need to be named
“Bob”. And, in case you want to know what
to plant for next year --- Sweet Chelsea won first, Black Cherry got second
and Sugary Cherry, third.
Sweet Chelsea
Next comes the great
weigh-off. While there were several
entered in the Biggest contest, there were only three real contenders
German Queen
And the winner
At a hefty 1 lb 15 oz
As with most of the meetings,
people brought food and they brought tomato themed food. Like
Tomato Pie
Tomato Bruschetta
It was a very enjoyable
morning!
Take care
No comments:
Post a Comment