What the heck is that? Kumato tomatoes

Try this experiment at home: drop a supermarket tomato off the counter and see if it gets damaged. 

I inadvertently performed this experiment on some plum tomatoes I was using for a red lentil dish. Nope, they emerged unscathed. 

We all value resilience, of course, but this is a little ridiculous – and an echo of the description in the book Tomatoland of Florida-grown supermarket tomatoes falling off the truck and remaining dent-free. (And I don't mean to imply that this is the worst attribute of supermarket tomatoes, grown in nutrient-free sand, doused in eye-popping amounts of pesticide and harvested under slavery-like conditions. But, yes, there are times when I still buy them.)

I went ahead and used these tomato-bots – I pumped up the tomato flavor with tomato paste and enjoyed the texture and slight sourness the supermarket tomatoes contributed to the dish. 

But using tomatoes in a cooked lentil dish is one thing; a fresh salad is another. Are there viable tomato options for a salad in December?

Enter the kumato.

Kumatoes have a striking appearance - their color is reminiscent of autumn leaves, encompassing various hues of green and brown in addition to their basic red.

Typically when you see a tomato with an exotic appearance, it's hanging out at the farmers' market.

You might have mistaken the kumato for an heirloom variety, had you first seen it in a farmers' market rather than encased in plastic. Kumatoes are actually cultivated (but not genetically modified) tomato variety. They were first bred in Spain; now their patent is held by a Swiss company, Syngenta. Kumatoes have a higher sugar content than most tomatoes (yum) balanced out with some tang, and thicker skins, which make them hardier than regular tomatoes. To help kumatoes stand out even more in shoppers' minds, Sunset, the North American representative for the kumato brand, trademarked the phrase "Simply Unique Brown Tomato" and put the catchphrase on the kumato packaging. 

The kumato tomatoes were delicious in a chopped garden salad, and earned a lot of "How did you manage to pull off a decent salad with winter tomatoes?" compliments. The green and brown hues of the tomatoes got lost in the normal exuberance of a salad. I give the kumato high grades for taste.

But of course it's hard to be unique - even if you're trademarked as such.

Sacher tomatoes, seen here at a farmer's market, are probably mistaken for heirlooms by most shoppers, simply because of their context. But like kumato tomatoes, sachers are carefully cultivated hybrids. Even their name is carefully selected: "Sacher" is intended to connote the chocolately deliciousness of a sacher torte.  As we saw with apple breeding, taste is just one part of the package - the most successful products are also hardy and memorable in the marketplace.

Kumato tomatoes can cope with their farmers' market rivals (and so far, I haven't seen sachers make the leap out of the farmers' market). In fact, the better-because-they're-odd farmers' market varieties help give kumato tomatoes their street cred. But the success of one supermarket "European brown gourmet tomato" can't help but spawn imitators. 

Watch out kumato - brunetta's right behind you.

Garden variety

"No, you're the one that doesn't understand!" The man walking near me at the Union Square Greenmarket was shouting into his phone. "I know I'm supposed to get an eggplant. But what kind? They have like 4 kinds! And 5 kinds of tomatoes! And 3 kinds of onions! What kind am I supposed to get?"

He had a point. This time of year even the bounty has bounty. And the variety within the items of produce is anything but garden-variety.

Cauliflower!

Beets!

Zucchini!

Cabbage!

Peppers!

Winter squash!

Potatoes!

Broccoli!

Carrots!

Radishes!

Tomatoes!

Beans!

Kohlrabi!

Eggplant!

Chard!

 

Grow Your Own, Part 2

I don't have a backyard like my sister does, so my balcony garden is a strictly containers-only arrangement. In the past I've grown - I mean attempted to grow - interesting and ambitious stuff such as cantaloupes and raspberries. The raspberries did fine on their own, but the cantaloupes required pollination. This work is normally falls under the job description of a bee, but our balcony is on the 16th floor, where the flying insects are typically mosquitoes. The one and only time I saw a bee, it was interested only in the tiny flowers of a basil plant. "The cantaloupe flowers, you stupid bee! Go to the cantaloupe! What's your problem?" I shouted, jabbing my finger at the showy blossoms of our cantaloupe plant. Amazingly, the insults and crazed pointing didn't work. The bee ignored me and continued its engagement with the miniature basil buds. My husband ended up pollinating the cantaloupe blossoms with a paintbrush. The plant yielded netted one cantaloupe the size of a softball, thoroughly inedible.

This year I grew some sensible and very good stuff: very sweet cherry tomatoes, flavorful hot peppers and a range of herbs.

I've been pretty delighted with this year's garden. The basil in particular has been bountiful enough to share - the true pride of the summer gardener.

But there's no sense in getting cocky. There in the corner, is the fig tree, faithfully watered in its doomed container with odd bits of failed seed growth and an expired dill plant. 

That's okay. I grew up in a Mets fan family, a cult in which irrational optimism is given voice in the cheer: There's Always Next Year.  

Thank you, Morley Safer, for this plausible winter garden salad

Remember tomatoes? Sweet, luscious tomatoes, perfect additions to every kind of salad and utterly fantastic on their own? Drippy, summery tomatoes?

Nah, neither do I.

It's about 2 degrees outside. I skidded on black ice this morning. More snow is expected this weekend.

Time for some salad!

Most people don't crave the kind of tomato that bounces undented when it falls of the truck - in other words, the kind of tomato that is available this kind of year. But they still may want the refreshment of a salad. 

Needless to say, "salad" doesn't mean a fatty assemblage of pasta or potatoes featuring my least favorite food substance, mayonnaise. I mean a real salad, a gathering of garden vegetables. But what are the plausible options for a decent garden salad when the supermarket selections can be so dismal?

Here comes Morley Safer to save the day! 

To most people, Morley Safer is known as a veteran correspondent of 60 Minutes, the long-running television show. Some may remember the old joke, "What kind of name is Morley? Is it the opposite of Leslie?" Some people also know that Morley Safer was a journalist in Southeast Asia. But to me, he's mainly known for a salad. 

This recipe for "Spicy Cucumber Salad" appeared in the New York Times about 20 years ago. I recall making it right away. Nowadays we wouldn't think of this salad as being "spicy" - compare it, say, with the deceptively innocuous-looking salads you get in Ethiopian restaurants, with killer chili pepper slices hidden among the lettuce leaves - but evidently 20 years ago in gringo-land, only a crusty journalist with Southeast Asian wartime credentials would know about cilantro and red pepper flakes. It may not be spicy, but it sure is tasty.

What I love most about the recipe is that its ingredients are readily accessible in regular supermarkets throughout the year: cucumbers, carrots and cilantro. Yes, cucumbers from the farmers' market would taste better, but this recipe is quite forgiving. Since the cucumbers are halved and seeded, and then coated with a flavorful dressing, even relatively tasteless, bloated and woody cucumbers can be used. You can use a rainbow of carrots if you'd like, or just a bunch in a cello bag. This recipe will elevate the humble.

Morley Safer's Spicy Cucumber Salad

2 large cucumbers, peeled 

1 large red onion, peeled and thinly sliced

4 carrots, peeled and sliced into julienne strips (about 2 cups) 

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves 

Dressing: 
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/2 cup rice vinegar 

3 tablespoons sugar 

or

1/3 cup vinaigrette
1 teaspoon Sriracha hot sauce, or more to taste
optional: dash of soy sauce


Cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise. Using a teaspoon, scoop out the seeds. Cut the cucumber into thin slices. Combine cucumbers, onion, carrots and cilantro in a bowl. Mix the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl, then pour to coat salad. Chill before serving.


Yes, you may place what we vegetarians euphemistically call "a hunk of protein" on this salad for a one dish meal. Or just serve it as a refreshing side dish. You may even crave it in the summer months - when the pickings are much better than they are in February.