Lets talk plum/paste tomatoes and sauce

[where_with_all]

Ok folks,

I aks this question every year around this time. what is your favorite plum/paste tomato for sauce. Looking for recommendations for next year. My experiance thus far has not been good.

I grew opalka a few years ago and the tomato was alright but production was horrible and the plants always looked like they were one day away from dying. _ I can't live like that.

This year a grew viva italia this primarily based on the description. The sauce is great but the tomato taste like cardboard. This is common for a paste.

Anyone have a good experiance with a paste tomato that makes great sauce and also tastes decent?-

Where with all

[Andrey_BY]

I'm growing three excellent Russian paste type tomato varieties with pepper-like elongated shape. There are:

1. Moskovskiy Delikates (Moscow Delicacy or Moscow Delicious)
Red elongated fruits, high production, good flavor for a non-beefsteak tomato, vigorous indeterminate habit

2. Frantsuzskiy Grozdevoy (French Clusters)
Red elongated fruits, high production, not so vigorous and high as the previous variety, good flavor for a non-beefsteak tomato. This non-commercial OP variety has been developed recently for Siberian indoor growing conditions.

3. Zolotaya Rybka (Gold Fish)
Golden-orange elongated fruites, very high production on a vigorous plant, not so mild flavor for an orange fruited variety

Photoes will be published here later today

P.S. But you can make a good sauce from any meaty tomato with rather good flavor, not only plum/paste type

[Suze]

Originally Posted by Andrey_BY

P.S. But you can make a good sauce from any meaty tomato with rather good flavor, not only plum/paste type

Agreed.

As to specific paster (or canning or drying) types, Sarnowski Polish Plum is a new favorite for me in terms of taste, extreme productivity, and meaty texture.

[korney19]

Here's some of my better paste/sauce types that were good the last few years:

Joe's Plum:



Wagner's Italian:



Rosalie's Paste:



Uncle Steve's:



Speckled Roman:



Kalman's Hungarian Pink:




Drier types mostly for sauce or salsa:

Blocky Marzano:



Horvath:



In-betweens, not dry, good for sauce, salsa, canning, etc, very heavy production:

Ernie's Plump:



Rio Grande:



Yugoslavian:



Speckled Roman, Joe's Plum, Kalman's, Wagner's & Yugoslavian all tasted very good to great fresh too. Joe's, Wagner's & Yugo also had that wonderful aroma when cut open/sliced. Kalman's, Wagner's & Yugoslavian are pinks, a little less common since many paste types are red.

Also, try heart types--they are very solid with not many seeds.

Hope this helps.

Mark

[carolyn137]

Beautiful pictures Mark.

But I strongly agree with both Andrey and Suze that any great tasting meaty tomato variety makes excellent paste. Just cook down the sauce a bit more to the desired consistency.

I could list some paste varieties here, and will just quickly mention Heidi and Martino's Roma, you already have tried Opalka which I think is pretty good, and I also think that the Sarnowski Polish Plum that Suze mentioned is a great one. For the latter, just picture a shorter fatter Opalka and fruits for me were often doubles and sometimes triples.

The Sarnowski family, from whom I got the seeds, wanted to call it a plum, but I don't see it that way at all.

Seeds for Sarnowski Polish Plum ( not available in 2007) are available at Sandhill. Glenn says 4-6 oz but I get fruits much larger than that.

The reasons I don't like paste tomatoes, as a group, are b'c many are very susceptible to Early Blight ( A. solani) as well as BER, and most importantly to me, as a group do not have such great tastes. Just my opinion.

[where_with_all]

"The Sarnowski family, from whom I got the seeds, wanted to call it a plum, but I don't see it that way at all."

Carolyn,What would you call it?



The reasons I don't like paste tomatoes, as a group, are b'c many are very susceptible to Early Blight ( A. solani) as well as BER, and most importantly to me, as a group do not have such great tastes. Just my opinion.[/quote]

Carolyn, I agree with your comment regarding plum and early blight. But I have to then wonder- if such a problem how come they have become the defacto standard for canning and making sauce? How can commercial growers hang their hats on a tomato with susceptability to blight and BER (some of my Opalka suffered from this).

Is there something about plum tomatoes that make them especially good for sauce?

There are huge companies in Italy making a living on San Marzano- which I consider bland for fresh eating but great when cooked down. Seems like I am missing something here.

Anyway- I am loving all the comments. Its going to make my decison tough for next year.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by where_with_all

"The Sarnowski family, from whom I got the seeds, wanted to call it a plum, but I don't see it that way at all."

Carolyn,What would you call it?

I'd call it a shorter fatter long red type such as Opalka. Please see the picture of Sarnowski that Suze posted. And yes, I forgot about Perito Italian, another variety I was lucky to get as well as Tony's Italian, and you could add in Matt D Imperio as well, if it's more of a plum type you want.


*****
The reasons I don't like paste tomatoes, as a group, are b'c many are very susceptible to Early Blight ( A. solani) as well as BER, and most importantly to me, as a group do not have such great tastes. Just my opinion.

Carolyn, I agree with your comment regarding plum and early blight. But I have to then wonder- if such a problem how come they have become the defacto standard for canning and making sauce? How can commercial growers hang their hats on a tomato with susceptability to blight and BER (some of my Opalka suffered from this).

*****

Commercial growers spray the heck out of their commercial crops to prevent Early Blight and other fungal diseases. And depending on their growing conditions they too have to put up with BER which is a mutimillion dollar problem in the tomato industry b'c there is no known sure fire way to prevent it.

*****
Is there something about plum tomatoes that make them especially good for sauce?

Not that I know of per the comments of several here including myself.

*****
There are huge companies in Italy making a living on San Marzano- which I consider bland for fresh eating but great when cooked down. Seems like I am missing something here.

****

I don't know if you are or not.

Anyway- I am loving all the comments. Its going to make my decison tough for next year.[/quote]

Just make a list of every variety that everyone has mentioned to you and grow out a few each year to see what suits you best.

[where_with_all]

Mark tell me more!!!

How does Speckeled roman and Joe's plum taste? Sweet, tangy, acidic, tomatoey. can you describe the taste as a suace and eaten raw? How is the production?

How does uncle steves and rio grande taste?

Andrey and Suze, I agree any good meaty tomato can be cooked down to a sauce but making suace out of a tomato with lots of seeds and too juicy is a royal pain. Seeds in sauce give an off flavor. and deseeding is hard in some tomatoes because of all the pockets.

[barkeater]

where-with-all, I put up about 100 quarts of sauce the last 2 seasons using a hand-crank strainer that eliminates seeds. I grew Opalka last year which was very productive but also very late. The point though is that there are big tomatoes I strain that give just as thick a sauce as any plum tomato, and also have very few seeds. Because of this, I don't bother with plums because they really aren't bred for fresh taste, and I want both.

Here is a list of what I remember as great big tomatoes for sauce:

Supersonic - most productive of all.
Pik Red
Campbells 1327
Wes
Kosovo
Anna Russian
Big Zac
Ramapo
German Red Strawberry- guessing here as I just cut my 1st.

From this list, note that Hearts and the Harris hybrids are prominent.

[korney19]

I would call Speckled Roman sweet and Joe's Plum more tangy & complex, like a good slicer/beefsteak tastes. Uncle Steve's I don't remember, but that pic, the pile is maybe 6-8" high on that plate, which is 9 inches diameter.

I hate giving taste descriptions because everybody has different taste perceptions but I use smell as a very important factor in taste.... the ones I talked about aroma "reek" great taste.

Rio Grande is a determinate that usually topples those 3-ring cages--you need a good stake too. You'll get about 4 quarts per plant.

I can't describe the taste cooked because when I make sauce, I use all the varieties mixed in... but I heard from others the Ernie's Plump makes one of the richest sauces.

And here's Sarnowski Polish Plum:




...and Wuhib:



...and Heidi:



For an orange sauce try these:

Roughwood Golden Plum (Yellow Brandywine x San Marzano):



...and Orange Banana: "INDETERMINATE. Orange Banana was the clear winner of an autumn paste taste at the Shipmans in Maine. Sweet flavor of Sungold but with more depth, makes a great sauce by itself, or adds a fruity complexity to other sauces. Orange fruits 3-4" long avg 4-5 oz."



Throw in some Herman's Yellow, a great tasting heart with few seeds:



...or brighten it up a bit with Power's Heirloom:

[where_with_all]

barkeater,

good point. I forgot to mention that I have been canning whole tomatoes. I usually deseed when I make the sauce by hand but maybe I should try a strainer. I thought ramapo was a plum?

Mark you seem to be the plum expert!! which is the sweetest "aroma"? Which is the tangiest "aroma"?

[carolyn137]

I thought ramapo was a plum?

****

No, it's a round red and what Bark has is a version that I dehybridized that he feels has most of the same qualities as the F1 original, with which I agree.

Some folks are now on the F4 and F5 of this dehybridized version and it seems to be holding up quite well as to stabillity.

And I also agree with what Bark said, and that's the meaty varieties have few seed locules, thus fewer seeds to deal with.

I think it['s just a matter or trying different varieties and trying strainers for seeds such as Mark uses, and then deciding what works best for you in terms of taste, sauce consistency and seed removal.

[nctomatoman]

One of my favorite traditional plum shaped types that is a tomato machine - and has the advantage of good fresh flavor (so more versatile than many of the Roma types) is the bright yellow fruited, indeterminate Yellow Bell. To me, this is a highly underrated variety...you just gotta like yellow tomato sauce or paste!

I don't grow specific types for sauce or paste - I use whatever is ripe....you just need to adjust the time to evaporate off the moisture (esp. in those that are particularly juicy).

[Suze]

Originally Posted by nctomatoman

One of my favorite traditional plum shaped types that is a tomato machine - and has the advantage of good fresh flavor (so more versatile than many of the Roma types) is the bright yellow fruited, indeterminate Yellow Bell. To me, this is a highly underrated variety...you just gotta like yellow tomato sauce or paste!

That's good to know. I've had seeds for Yellow Bell for three years now from Deer Park, maybe I will finally give this one a go next spring.

[rxkeith]

i got uncle steve from my great uncle who was born in sicily. i've grown it for over 30 years now. i like it because its good fresh or cooked. the flavor kind of evolves as you're eating it, and lingers in the mouth. a nice tomatoey flavor. not sweet or tart, or acid bite. foilage is pretty much like prue which i'm also growing this year. long wispy floppy branches. you could call them the weeping willows of the tomato world. the largest one that i weighed was about 15 oz. most are smaller than that however. production is good, moderate, but not heavy. it did much better for me growing in the metro detroit area than it does in calumet which is known for copper, snow and hockey. not tomatos.
i think its a good one.

keith in calumet