san marzano

[t-ham]

Good Morning folks,

I always hear about how great San Marzanos are for cooking whenever I watch a cooking show on the idiot box. They even say to look for them when you buy canned tomatos. I guess some brands list them on the label. Anyway, I've always been curious to try them and yesterday I found some plants. Unfortunately the tomatos on the next table were labeled as some sort of marigold so I don't have a lot of confidence in this garden center's supplier. Being this close to the metro NYC area this store's focus is more towards upscale decorations like bird baths carved to look like Venus de Milo, $75 watering cans, mahogany wineracks to go with your "outdoor entertainment space", and exotic plants that need life support to grow around here, all of which must fit in the trunk of a Mercedes without dirtying the carpet. You get the idea. And no, I'm not exaggerating about the watering can. (No bells and whistles on it like depth gauges and curb feelers, no GPS, it doesn't fill itself or do the payroll, nothing except hold water and pour it out, but not by itself.)
Okay, now my question:
What is your opinion regarding San Marzanos? Taking into account local variables and personal tastes(I've read enough posts around here to have seen one person rave about the same variety that another person has panned), I'd just like some thoughts about the type and if you don't care for it I'd like to know what you prefer. Any thoughts as to taste, growth habits, cultivation variables, etc will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Tom,

[Mark0820]

Just wondering if perhaps the other tomatoes were Marglobe instead of marigold.

[t-ham]

No, I'm afraid not, although at least you could chalk that up to a simple spelling error, but they were even kind enough to include a picture on the plant tag. It was definitely Marigold. Even had the variety name but it escapes me. Maybe the person that was assigned to the job was new to commercial horticulture or even gardening in general. I imagine you could mistake the first true leaves of a tomato for the first true leaves of a marigold if it was your first day on the job.

I have a visual of a guy standing there with 2 pallets and 2 stacks of plant tags, confused look on his face, looking at one, looking at the other, then a shrug and he flips a coin, sticks in the tags, and heads off to lunch.

[carolyn137]

The variety you saw could well have been Marizol Gold which is a red/gold bicolor from the Black Forest in Germany. Interesting bluish/green foliage and darn good taste for a bicolor.

The reason you see so many folks on cooking shows and the like raving about San Marzano is b/c that's pretty much all they know. They don'thave the benefit that many of us here have in terms of knowing many many other varieties that are, IMO, much better as paste tomatoes for sauce.

And some of those are:

Heidi
Mama Leone
Sarnowski Polish Plum
Opalka
Martino's Roma
Franchi Large Red Pear

...... to name a few and I could name more and so could lots of folks here.

If truth be told many of us prefer to use the best tasting varieties to make sauce and just cook it down to the desired consistency or even add a few paste tomatoes to the mix as well, but not necessary.

Paste varieties, in general with some exceptions, are not the best tasting varieties, and are more susceptible to Early Blight ( A. solani) and Blossom End Rot.

Hope that helps.

[lurley]

I have been reading two Italian cookbooks lately, I read cookbooks like some people read novels, and one author in particular likes and grows san marzano because she cans whole tomatoes and does not can sauce. She says they break down and do not keep their shape like some other paste types when she uses her home canned product. She wants a tomato that disintegrates when she cooks with it. I sent her some of my family paste tomato seeds in trade for some of her hot pepper seeds and she said she will grow at least one plant of it this year so it will be interesting to see if she like mine any better.

[t-ham]

Thanks for the imput. I should have known there were a ton of other varieties, San Marzano might be the television cooks paste equivalent of Beefsteak or some other mass-produced variety because of received wisdom. Maybe San Marzanos are the best variety to make it to a can. Who knows. Anyway, now I have new insight into just how wide a world of tomatos is out there.