Cow's Tit paste tomato - It's just strange

[Steve Magruder]

Look at these t-... fruits....

Really big compared to romas and san marzanos.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Steve Magruder

Look at these t-... fruits....

Really big compared to romas and san marzanos.

But very typical of the many long red paste varieties such as Howard German, Opalka, Sausage, Sarnowski Polish PLum and friends, and lots more; they all have those nobs at the blossom end and the ones I mentioned are also red as is the one you're now growing.

[Steve Magruder]

First one just harvested!

[Father'sDaughter]

You know, that looks a lot like a tomato my dad grows every year, but he has no idea what it is.

Years ago he was visiting a friend and they went across the street to check out the tomatoes in a neighbor's garden. The neighbor gave him one to try, so dad saved the seeds from it and has been growing it ever since. If I remember correctly, it's pretty similar to the photo above. It's meaty with very little gel, and mom loves it for making sauce. Does that sound like Cow's Tit?

Dad's friend moved quite a while ago, and he doesn't know what happened to his old neighbor, so there's no one to ask about the source of the variety.

The only other possibility, based solely on appearance, that I've found is one called Piramide. According to Tania's site, Gourmet Seeds introduced it in 2010, and their site describes it as an Italian heirloom. Can't find anything else on it.

I'm thinking next year I'm going to have to snag some seeds from dad, then buy some Cow's Tit and Piramide seeds to do a side-by-side comparison.

[carolyn137]

The only other possibility, based solely on appearance, that I've found is one called Piramide. According to Tania's site, Gourmet Seeds introduced it in 2010, and their site describes it as an Italian heirloom. Can't find anything else on it.

*****

But please see my post above where I posted that there are many long red paste varieties that look identical to CT, and I could add several more long red paste varieties to my short list above.

I think this one gets the attention it does b'c of the name and well, it doesn't surprise me in the least that Keith M named it what he did but you have to know Keith, as I do, to appeciate that.

When Italian families immigrated to the US from the late 1800's to about the early 20's it was very common to bring with them seeds for what they grew at home and THE most common type of variety were the long red paste ones.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/w...+Rosa#mw-pages

Above is a link to Tania's page to paste varieties, a couple of hundred of them, and a good number of them are long red ones. Often even a long red one will be called a plum, such as Sarnowski Polish Plum, although they are indeed long and red and almost all of them have a knob at the blossom end.

Italy is not the only source for long red ones, note Opalka from POland, and there are many varieties from especially European countries where tomatoes are featured in their cuisine.

[Father'sDaughter]

Carolyn, thanks for the input. Based on the fact that dad, his friend, and the neighbor all immigrated from southern Italy during the '50's, and dad's friend lived in a predominantly Italian neighborhood, I'm assuming it's an Italian variety. I guess I may never know exactly which one it is, though. I'll just have to make sure I get some seeds from dad this year!

[MrsJustice]

Originally Posted by PA_Julia

I'd grow it just because it has the words cow and tit in it's name. LOL!!


Julia

That's funny!!!

[meadowyck]

do you have pictures that you can post, I would like to see in the garden photos.

[Cole_Robbie]

Cool stuff! I have a pompeii heirloom roma this year that is a similar tomato.

[Steve Magruder]

Here's the Cow's Tit plant per request. It has some fungal disease, but I'm vigorously attacking it, and it's growing several fruit, a few of them as large as what I just harvested.

[Steve Magruder]

I ate the first cow's tit a few days ago. It was exceptionally sweet. I wasn't expecting that. I chopped it up into a tri-color pasta salad with balsamic vinaigrette. It was yummy.

[green_go]

I've been growing Moskovskiy Delikates variety this year and the plant very much meets the same description as Cow’s Tit: it is all weedy, spindly , wild and unruly and overall ugly: thin branches reaching 7+ ft tall and the leaves are limpy and sickish looking (though the plant is anything but sick). It produces tons of elongated fruit which look like … well… penises rather than t..ts J
Here are some pics of Moskovskiy Delikates:

[ddsack]

So funny! Now that one I'd never heard of before! And here comes the inevitable question, ... er ... how do they taste?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by green_go

I've been growing Moskovskiy Delikates variety this year and the plant very much meets the same description as Cow’s Tit: it is all weedy, spindly , wild and unruly and overall ugly: thin branches reaching 7+ ft tall and the leaves are limpy and sickish looking (though the plant is anything but sick). It produces tons of elongated fruit which look like … well… penises rather than t..ts J
Here are some pics of Moskovskiy Delikates:

Yes, another long red paste type and as I mentioned above, there are many of them if you look at the paste list I linked to from Tania's site in an above post.

Some fat, some skinny, most with wispy leaves, most with knobs at the end, a few without.Since Tania lists so many ones with Russian names I just went to her site to see if she lists this one, but it's loading very slowly. I don't know if the slow loading is at her site or with my software, but will try again later.

[green_go]

The taste of fresh Moskovskiy Delikates is blah: the flesh is thick and dry (not juicy at all), very few seeds inside. But they are just perfect for making preserves: we love pickled tomatoes and Moskovskiy Delikates is just the best for this purpose: tomatoes fit snugly into a jar and, best of all, thanks to their thick flesh, they don’t become mushy and soft, but stay firm and keep their shape when you open the jar and start eating your marinated tomatoes. This is the only reason I will grow them again (well, and they are a perfect conversation piece at any gathering too J )
I received the seeds from Russia from a friend this spring and I also sent a few seed packs to 5-th annual tomato swap, so some people will get them this fall.