i have a few tomato freaks with phallic protrusions. before this year i’d only seen this kind of mutation in pictures. it’s not very uncommon but i can’t find a name for the phenomenon, or a cause. i did come across this fascinating list of tomato mutations and conditions, but i couldn’t find this on there. anyone know anything about these?
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.”
