tomato freaks

i guess this one isn’t exactly a freak--it’s supposed to look like this. i harvested my first two reisetomates.

the seed catalogue warned these might be very sour and not so tasty. i grew them for looks alone and thought i’d end up mixing most of them into sauce, but they taste delicious to me. a little bit sour, but in a good way, with a sweetness that balances it out, and a pleasant texture.

here’s one deconstructed. the numerous fused segments pull apart easily. it reminded me of separating pomegranate arils, but on a much larger and less frustrating scale.

this tomato, on the other hand, is a true freak. it looks normal from the top, but turn it over...

and you can see its malformed parasitic twin popping out of its butt. this mutant is a chocolate stripe tomato that grew from a double blossom.

cut in half you can clearly see the innard-twin.

separation surgery is a success!

i’m burying the lede...this might be the best tomato i’ve ever tasted. (my previous favorite was chocolate cherry. i think i need to grow every variety of tomato that has the word “chocolate” in its name.)

when i first took a bite it gave me a jolt, like when you take the first sip from a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. it shocks your tastebuds a little. once i got over that initial feeling and realized what was going on, i fell into absolute tomatophoria.

i gave part of it to my mom, partly because i wanted to share the gloriousness but also to make sure i wasn’t imagining the fabulosity. she was stupefied as well. “it’s like a whole different category. it’s like a...tomelon.”