Welcome to Tomatopalooza™

Welcome to Tomatopalooza ™

Tomatopalooza™ is the annual tomato tasting event held each year near Raleigh, NC. This is the web site where you can find details of upcoming events, as well as links to pictures of past events. If you have any questions, please send an email to Lee Newman at leetomato@gmail.com or Craig LeHoullier at nctomatoman@gmail.com.

News – Updated July 25, 2011

The ninth annual Tomatopalooza™ heirloom tomato tasting is complete!

Hosts: Lee Newman, Craig LeHoullier
About the tasting: all are encouraged to bring samples of tomatoes to taste from their gardens. The more folks that can bring tomatoes, the more we will have to taste. We hope to get as many different varieties of tomatoes to taste. The supply of varieties will, of course, be dependent upon what’s ripe on that date! This year we will have some more unique surprises, so don’t miss it! We look forward to seeing you all in July!

Contest Results:

Largest Tomato: Kristina Bulgarian (from me, Lee) weighing in at 31 oz.! We also had a very nice Kosovo from Martha that came in at ~27oz.

Best Tasting: Sungold

Most Unusual: Tie between Kristina Bulgarian, Mexico Midget, Cossack Pineapple and Garden Peach (2 votes each)

We had 166 different varieties represented and sampled by 70~80 folks. Thanks go out to Lori and Brian for a superb job of planning and executing the event, and all of the amazing help from Tim, Lynn, and Bret! We survived the 103° heat with a little shade and plenty of water.

For me, the day was dominated by the dwarf table where we had 52 distinct varieties in various stages of selection presented. Rosella Purple was my favorite here, although Sweet Sue, Maralinga, Summertime Gold, Summertime Green, and Sweet Adelaide were additional standouts. We also had our newest dwarf F1, Brawny here with 3 F2 selections I brought. Also preset were a few from the Rosy Line (Rosy F3 and Uluru Ochre) that have a unique green/orange coloration. The red table was rather unremarkable for me. Even my Cuostralee, which I love, was not at its most flavorful. The standouts at the pinks were a large tasty Kosovo and Grandfather Ashlock. KBX was fantastic as usual in the orange/yellow category and it was fun sampling the various Cherokee Purples and Chocolates that were brought in that section. The greens were fantastic again this year, with Cherokee Green and Spear’s Tennessee Green having great flavors. The cherries sampled well again this year, but the standouts to me were Sungold Select II (about as close to the hybrid as there gets!) and Black Cherry. And of course, we had Lime Green Salad Sorbet for all to trial. It was a perfect treat for such a hot day! It was great seeing old friends and new faces. I hope everyone had a great time, and we look forward to next year’s 10th anniversary event!

The photos and variety lists are shown below. Again, if you have any additional photos of the event, please send them to register@tomatopalooza.org

Basic Tomato Sorbet

Makes 6 ½ cup servings

From recipe published in The Virginian Pilot July 16, 2006

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

2 cups tomato juice

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Prior to juicing tomatoes – place an 8-9” metal pan in the freezer to chill

To make simple sugar:

Mix together sugar and water, heat, while stirring constantly, until all sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and let simple sugar mixture cool.

Juice tomatoes* (of your choice) to make 2 cups of juice. If you don’t have 2 cups of juice, add another fruit juice of your choice. (Lemon, Lime, Orange, Apple etc….) Mix together with cooled simple sugar mixture and lemon juice (see variations).

Pour the mixture into the chilled pan, return to freezer. Freeze until ice crystals being to form around the edges (about 45 minutes). Stir the frozen edges into the liquid center. Return the pan to the freezer, stirring every 30 minutes or so until all the liquid freezes firmly but not solidly. (About 3-4 hours)

Working quickly, break the frozen sorbet into pieces and place in a food processor or blender. Process until smooth. Pour into plastic freezer container and freeze until firm (about 4 hours)

Variations for varieties served at Tomatopalooza IX

Lime Green Salad Sorbet

3 cups Lime Green Salad Tomato Juice

Juice of one Lime (instead of lemon juice)

Zest of one lime

Add finely chopped lime zest to simple sugar mixture during cooling process

Tomato Jam Recipe:

Ingredients

1.5 pounds of tomatoes, before coring (note 1)

These tomatoes can be the ones that are really ripe and going soft.

2-3 chili peppers (note 2) 4 cloves of garlic

1 thumb size piece of ginger (or two if you have small thumbs)

1 1/4 cups of confectioners' / 10-X powdered sugar (note 3)

1/2 cup red wine vinegar (note 4)

Optional: add 1/8 cup of balsamic with the red wine vinegar to equal a 1/4 cup

2 Tablespoons fish sauce

To Make:

1) Core and peel the tomatoes

2) Cut the tomatoes into 1/2 pieces (note 5)

3) Peel the garlic and ginger, rough chop into smaller pieces

4) Puree garlic, ginger, chilies and fish sauce

5) Add puree, sugar, and vinegar to a non-reactive sauce pan (stainless is one)

6) Add tomatoes, then slowly bring to a boil

7) Cook 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pan

8) Pour into hot, sterilized glass jars and cover with sterilized hot canning lids

9) Follow canning procedures for longer storage, otherwise this way will keep for no more than a month to six weeks max

Notes:

1) The Trust tomato I used is pretty neutral in terms of balancing acidity with sweetness. Because of this, the recipe is balanced between the amounts of sugar to vinegar. To balance your tomatoes, try adding more of one ingredient than less of the other.

2) How hot you want it depends on you. I used 3 red chilies for the batch today

3) Add more if the acidity is higher

4) Add more vinegar if the tomatoes are sweet.

5) Mine didn't set as well as I hoped because it was just made this morning and probably because I didn't remove the seeds, which added more juice, I suppose. Cooking longer could reduce it, but the longer cooking time may affect the taste.

Links to pictures from previous events

Tomatopalooza™ I 2003: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ II 2004: Link1, Link2

Tomatopalooza™ III 2005: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ IV 2006: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ V 2007: Link1, Link2, Link3

Tomatopalooza™ VI 2008: Link1, Link2

Tomatopalooza™ VII 2009: Link1, Link2

Tomatopalooza™ VIII 2010: Link1, Link2, Link3, Craig's writeup, Sue's blog, Dean's writeup

Tomatopalooza™ IX 2011: Link1, Link2, Craig's writeup, Dean's writeup

Links to the lists of tomatoes represented at each event

Tomatopalooza™ I 2003: NA

Tomatopalooza™ II 2004: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ III 2005: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ IV 2006: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ V 2007: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ VI 2008: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ VII 2009: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ VIII 2010: Link1

Tomatopalooza™ IX 2010: Link1