kareng
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Paste/Sauce tomatoes that are also good fresh?

Is there such a thing?

I was looking at Amish paste, Jersey devil and Hungarian Heart (Baker Creek) but I am not sure.

any suggestions, comments etc? I am going to put my seed order in soon with Baker Creek.

Thank you!

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Gary350
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If you puree tomato skins you get tomato paste.

If you squeeze out the some juice & seeds then puree the pulp with no skins you get tomato sauce.

If you puree the whole tomato with no skin you get tomato juice.

Each part if the tomato has a different flavor. I can whole tomatoes with skins & seeds in 100 mason jars for the pantry to cook with all winter. Sometimes I puree whole tomatoes for certain certain recipes like enchilada sauce.

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applestar
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Every year, I grow 2 or 3 “paste” type varieties of tomatoes among my 50-60 other varieties. Paste types are supposed to be good for making sauce (not salsa) because they have dry flesh and requires less cooking down. They are generally not juicy and, so, lack that fresh eating experience and flavor profile. Sometimes, my “paste” type is also called “stuffer” type and are big and lobed and hollow inside, not the typical sausage-shaped.

Well, let me tell you the dry flesh varieties are almost universally not as good eating when fresh because of the juiciness factor. Also, the pointy sausage types are extremely susceptible to Blossom End Rot. When the rest of the varieties are not showing any symptoms (except those minority that are round-fruited but also genetically susceptible to BER), it can get frustrating to realize those few needed special treatment. I could imagine that if you are growing them in their own patch, you COULD give them that special treatment from the beginning (which is what you need to do because BER on fruits is developed due to conditions at flower-stage.

For me, I always have more harvest of the not paste varieties that still need to be processed in some way to preserve them. And it turns out that tomatoes that taste GREAT when eaten fresh make superior sauces when cooked. You can strain out the excess liquid before cooking — you Don’t have to cook it down — and Still get great flavor. You can hot waterbath the liquid/juice separately. And yes, I often just freeze them whole and cook them later.

All this to say, yes I know some “paste” types that are also not bad for eating fresh, but they are typically more juicy than those that aren’t... and they are not worth the extra trouble of growing them IMHO. I would rather grow more of the juicy, fresh eating kinds that are great for fresh eating and less fussy to grow, and make sauces out of those.

PaulF
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I agree with applestar's statement that tomatoes that taste great fresh also makes for the best sauce. We have not grown a "paste" tomato for years because a bland tomato makes for bland paste and sauce. Hungarian Heart would be one of those that I would not consider a paste type. It is a large meaty heart shaped and has excellent flavor. Many of the heart shaped tomatoes are very meaty with few seeds and do make excellent sauce and when cooked down to make a paste. We don't even try to separate varieties when making sauce. Whatever is available goes into the pot. You get some really good combinations of flavors. Or you can do all of one variety separately and see which is your favorite.

I am an heirloom/OP tomato grower exclusively so I cannot recommend any hybrids that may work for sauce since I think hybrids are lacking in flavor anyway.

imafan26
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I always thought the paste tomatoes were less watery. I did find them more seedy than slicers. I used to grow amish paste because it had more juice than most paste tomatoes and were not that seedy and in my climate they were easier to grow than slicers. They don't have the flavor of heirlooms but were good for salsa and building a deluxe sandwich.

I did get better at growing bigger tomatoes although the best are in the 8-10 oz range. I can't grow a lot of the really large ones because my day is not long enough for them to get over a lb (I get close). Heat and disease tolerance limits what I can grow, so I have to experiment a bit. Brandywine tasted great but required that it be in a pot off the ground to avoid nematodes, and it also needed weekly fungicides, since it was not resistant. It made big tomatoes but not over a lb, and not a lot of them. I had to cage them, wrap them in netting to keep them from being stung by fruit flies and eaten by birds. On the other hand, cherry tomatoes like sungold is prolific and sweet and the birds can't get them all. They are more disease tolerant, although they almost always crack when they are ripe. Sweet 100, is not as sweet but pretty bulletproof. Even unprotected the birds can't eat them all. I've tried a few tomatoes some were good, some ok, and some down right so nasty even the birds left them alone. I have come to the conclusion that if a fruit is good the birds will go after it. If they don't touch it, I may as well get rid of it, because I probably won't like it either.

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Gary350
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Have you grown these tomatoes before to see if they are tomatoes that you like, Amish paste, Jersey devil and Hungarian Heart (Baker Creek)?

Many years ago I planted 6 to 8 different type tomatoes every summer in a few years we learned which tomato we like best. We like all the Beef Steak varieties, Big Beef, Beef Master, Super Star, Beef Steak.

Some of the Heirloom tomatoes taste just as good as Beef Steak like German Johnson but Big Beef will out produce the heirlooms 6 to 1. My goal in TN is to get the largest harvest possible by July 15 because 100 degree weather reduces the harvest by 90%. Cherry tomatoes harvest does not slow down much in hot weather. I only need to plant 10 Beef Steak Plants compared to 60 German Johnson Plants to get the same harvest this uses up a lot of garden space for 50 extra tomato plants.

Beef Steak tomatoes are very meaty type tomatoes. It does not have a symmetrical pattern inside like most tomatoes. Beef steak will not fall apart when sliced thin for sandwiches. They have less seeds than regulator tomatoes. Big Beef is 1 of the large tomatoes in the Beef steak group. Like applestar said, if it tastes good fresh it will taste good in everything you cook.

Give your tomatoes no nitrogen fertilizer or you will get very large plants with few tomatoes. Give your plants pellet lime when planted and pellet lime every 2 weeks all season to prevent BER. I give my tomato plants lots of wood ash it contains, lime & fertilizer with no nitrogen.

I learned not to plant celebrity tomatoes they have a very poor tomato flavor, some people actually like this type tomato. This is why you should plant many varieties to learn what flavor you like.

I don't grow paste tomatoes anymore they have a very noticeable flavor that is not good in any food. I tried mixing 10% paste tomato with 90% Beef Steak it is still not good.

UTtomatoman
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I have found the tastiest fresh eating tomatoes also make the best sauce/paste. Typical paste tomatoes like Roma just don't do it for me. I don't eat Romas or store bought tomatoes, it's a personal preference. They just taste like mushy cardboard to me.

When I have an excess of tomatoes, August and early September in our mountain climate, I freeze and can a lot for use the rest of the year. These go into a crock pot to slow cook and reduce down to a thicker sauce slowly with lots of finely diced onions and fresh garlic in the crock pot along with just a bit of dried red chile's.

Now, back to the question of paste/sauce tomatoes that are also good fresh. That depends on your taste buds. "Best taste" is a personal preference. For me, I like Brandywines, Cherokee Purple, Tsindao, Morado, Amazon Chocolate, Big Beef, Cherokee Carbon, and Arad's Pink Heart and Super Tasty.

Here's a picture of Arad's Pink Heart... which unfortunately I didn't pick early enough before a fall rainstorm

UTtomatoman
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Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 3:37 pm

I have found the tastiest fresh eating tomatoes also make the best sauce/paste. Typical paste tomatoes like Roma just don't do it for me. I don't eat Romas or store bought tomatoes, it's a personal preference. They just taste like mushy cardboard to me.

When I have an excess of tomatoes, August and early September in our mountain climate, I freeze and can a lot for use the rest of the year. These go into a crock pot to slow cook and reduce down to a thicker sauce slowly with lots of finely diced onions and fresh garlic in the crock pot along with just a bit of dried red chile's.

Now, back to the question of paste/sauce tomatoes that are also good fresh. That depends on your taste buds. "Best taste" is a personal preference. For me, I like Brandywines, Cherokee Purple, Tsindao, Morado, Amazon Chocolate, Big Beef, Cherokee Carbon, and Arad's Pink Heart and Super Tasty.

Here's a picture of Arad's Pink Heart... which unfortunately I didn't pick early enough before a fall rainstorm
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