Black Bear

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Tania

Ami,

This is very interesting! Hmmm.... the only russian tomato I know of with a racially discriminatory name was 'Negrityonok' (and the only reason the name sounded discriminatory to English speakers is because it was incorrectly translated into English - there is nothing discriminatory or derogatory in the original Russian name). Having said that, Negrityonok is a small (2-5 oz) black tomato, so it does not quite fit.

I am hoping Andrey will chime in here - as Mr. Kraft mentioned Belarus I wonder if the seeds came from Andrey.

Tania

Tania, here is a composite search about that variety and it was all brought about by at that time a Tville member who was black and was upset with the name.

There are many other threads in this same search where it was suggested renaming it, should varieties be renamed, etc.

http://tomatoville.com/search.php?searchid=601127

Andrey is listing it as Negrityonok in the 2010 Yearbook and I think Neil was at first as well, and then deleted it in the YEarbook; I didn't goback to check that out.

Andrey says 140-160 gm round fruits and says the name translates as "Little Blackman" and it's a Russian CV.

It's the only listing for this variety in the 2010 and I didn't go back to check other listings but when I looked at the listings for Black BEar the sizes noted are much bigger, so I don't know what's happened between Andrey sending it to Reinhard, as he has other varieties, and others growing it out, etc.

For instance Neil says 8-14 oz pink/black fruits for Black Bear, seeds from Reinhard, Al Anderson says 8-14 oz fruits, seeds from Neil and Marianne Jones says 8-18 oz fruits, seeds from Neil.

So I don't know how Andrey's 2-3 oz ones suddenly went up in size. Reinhard's response to Ami indicated that he, Reinhard, was the one who changed the name from Negrityonok to Black Bear but so help me I can't see any similarity size-wise although all speak of a large pink black when listing Black Bear.And both varieties are noted to be RL and indeterminate.