Amy Goldmans Tomato Book ?

[James Campbell]

I am wondering if anyone has the list of tomatos that are in her new book ? Thanks James

[Wi-sunflower]

I have her book but don't have the varieties as a list yet. If no one else posts it, I'll do a scan of the chapter pages with the lists when I have a chance.

While we are on the book, I would like to hear any one elses opinion of it. There are things I like about the book and things I thought could have been done better. Especially all the tiny type. Way hard on the eyes.

Carol

[PNW_D]

Here's a start, thanks to Tania ........ (not complete per her comment)

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Category:Amy_Goldman%27s_The_Heirloom_Tomato

[gardenfrog]

I found the book both beautiful and disappointing. Varieties she claimed were only "fair" or worse, from my perspective were actually very good/delicious (ie: Delicious, Togo...). I think this goes back to individual preferences, climate, composition of soil etc..

Funny thing about Amy's book... I ordered it last month via Ebay. The wrong book was sent and I mentioned it to the seller. Then I got a notice from Ebay that the auction was determined to be invalid and the seller no longer selling. The same day I got that message I received TWO of the Amy's book via Barnes & Noble! Since I can't locate the seller, I guess I now have two free books in addition to the one I paid for. : )

[Wi-sunflower]

Yes that was what I noticed -- in the first stuff I looked at, MOST were listed as "insipid". Why bother to review something you think isn't any good ?? And so many of them. Why not JUST put in the stuff you think is outstanding ?

But then I started seeing varieties that I think are pretty good myself and others that I had seen mentioned here at TV as good that she thought were not good. Personal taste I guess.

Carol

[gardenfrog]

I'm afraid she may have lost some of her credibility because of her personal bias.

[gardenfrog]

Hi, Wi-Sun!!! I'm looking forward to planting the sunflower seeds you sent. May have to wait another month for the freezing to go away completely. Oops! Off subject... Nice, tomatoes, Amy!

[Tom Wagner]

I have used Amy Goldman's tomato book in my presentations recently and I find it worthy of much consideration. I know that Amy is in Australia promoting her book and one of her photos is quite catchy. I'll let you decide which is my personal fave.

That said, Scientific American has some interesting online features about tomatoes, and two of the most interesting are by:


ARTICLES BY: Brendan Borrell


· Features 3/30/09
Slide Show: Amy Goldman's Heirloom Tomatoes

Not Your Garden-Variety Garden Tomatoes
· Features 3/30/09

http://www.sciam.com/slideshow.cfm?i...sc=emailfriend

http://www.sciam.com/slideshow.cfm?i...eirloom-tomato

Photo # 2 in the slide show is my favorite:

http://www.sciam.com/media/gallery/4...E63B3D9A_2.jpg

Yes, go ahead and use in as your computer wallpaper!!!


How to Grow a Better Tomato: The Case against Heirloom Tomatoes

The product of archaic breeding strategies, heirloom tomatoes are hardly diverse and are no more "natural" than grocery-store varieties. New studies promise to restore their lost, healthy genes

Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of six features on the science of food, running daily from March 30 through April 6, 2009.
Famous for their taste, color and, well, homeliness, heirloom tomatoes tug at the heartstrings of gardeners and advocates of locally grown foods. The tomato aficionado might conclude that, given the immense varieties—which go by such fanciful names as Aunt Gertie's Gold and the Green Zebra—heirlooms must have a more diverse and superior set of genes than their grocery store cousins, those run-of-the-mill hybrid varieties such as beefsteak, cherry and plum.
No matter how you slice it, however, their seeming diversity is only skin-deep: heirlooms are actually feeble and inbred—the defective product of breeding experiments that began during the Enlightenment and exploded thanks to enthusiastic backyard gardeners from Victorian England to Depression-era West Virginia. Heirlooms are the tomato equivalent of the pug—that "purebred" dog with the convoluted nose that snorts and hacks when it tries to catch a breath.

So it figures that the author must snorts and hacks when he tries to eat a so-called Heirloom tomato like the Green Zebra, a feeble and inbred—and defective product of breeding experiments.
I must be a back water individual, feeble and inbred, to have come up with the breeding creating the Green Zebra. Now I will know my epithet on my grave stone.

Tom Wagner

[carolyn137]

Tom, there already is a thread about the Scientific American article here at Tville in the Discussion section, with quite a few pithy comments.

I first saw it at DG and so did Ami and he transferred it to here as I was going to do but hung up at GW b'c I had to do some Googling to answer a question, and I posted it at GW where there's a very long thread indeed.

I think you'll find the general criticism of the article interesting.

[dice]

The thing about most hybrids is that it is a lot of work to grow
for something that you can just buy at the grocery store. It
seems like the time could be better spent elsewhere.

Heirlooms, not all of them but many, have flavors that
a grocery store shelf has not seen for 50 years or more.

And all of that aside from the survival insurance of maintaining
genetic diversity in the seed stock. Tania's outdoor gardens
have been hit hard in recent years by late blight at harvest time,
for example. No current commercial hybrids mention late blight
tolerance among their "features". But there was at least one
variety that simply ignored it, the RL Chernomor that she grew
(that, unlike Black Seaman, was RL and indeterminate).
Without seed trading and growing of heirloom seeds, no one
would know that there were varieties tolerant of whatever race
of late blight is presently afflicting gardens in parts of the
Pacific Northwest in North America.

That same scenario can happen anywhere, anytime, to any
vegetable crop. If she had only had outdoor crops of a few
commercial hybrid varieties, it all would have been wiped
out at harvest time for the last few years, and she would have
had no tomatoes.

[Tom Wagner]

Carolyn,

The thread is:


Amy Goldmans Tomato Book ?

Therefore, the point of my message is about Amy Goldman's book more than it is about the Scientific American articles in the features. There just happens to be two features and I made reference to the first one at the beginning of my message. I did, however, made the obvious issue more about the author of both articles to see if anyone caught the discrepancy.

The first link shows my tomatoes in her book. The last link was just my way of remarking if the author had a change of heart after the controversy of stating a case against heirloom tomatoes.

I did not realize that there was a thread on the Scientific American as such. I read a very small percentage of the posts here at T-Ville, therefore it may be OK if I make a passing reference to the Scientific American because the first link in directly linked to Amy Goldman's listing of tomatoes and the last link was my take on the obvious.

Tom Wagner

[Wi-sunflower]

I'm working on the scans. OCR is a PITA. I need to edit before it's postable. Maybe tomorrow.

Carol

[simmran1]

The seed company below specializes in varieties written about in Amy's book.

http://www.underwoodgardens.com/

[Wi-sunflower]

OK, I probably could have typed it faster than working with this OCR stuff and I can't type worth a good gosh darn.

The list is 200 varieties long so it's a bit much to post here directly. I attached an excel spreadsheet with the varieties in a list. If you don't have Excel, get OpenOffice for free. That's actually what I made the file with.

I actually wanted to make the list so I could see how many I have on the list myself. I haven't had a chance to check yet.

I know I have over 20 from Carolyn's book and from the partial list that Tania has I know I had 12 from Amy's book. But that was before I got the book and the whole list. Plus this year I will have a whole lot more because of all the trades I made here.

Carol

[amideutch]

Carol, thanks for the Goldman list and the time it took to create it. There were some obvious omissions by Amy that surprised me. Ami