What's the Difference Between All the Types of Tomatoes?
There are two major categories of tomatoes: heirlooms, which well cover below, and hybrids. Hybrids  The tomatoes youll find year-round in the grocery store are hybrids, which means that humans have cultivated and bred them for specific characteristics. Not all hybrids are bad, but the grocery-store ones usually are; theyre bred for resistance to diseases, firm flesh, thick skin, and storage potential, rather than, say, flavor. Theyre also yanked from their plants while theyre still hard as rocks so that they dont get crushed on the way to their final destination. Off the vine, they cant develop the sugars, acids, and other flavor/aroma chemicals that make them actually taste goodso theyre sprayed with ethylene gas instead, which induces reddening and softening. The result: watery, cottony pucks. Heirloom tomatoes  Heirloom tomatoes, on the other hand, are typically open-pollinated, which means the varietal comes from natural pollination (birds, insects, wind, etc.) rather than scientists. These types of tomatoes breed true, which means that if you plant one of its seeds, it will grow into a plant that bears tomatoes that look just like the parent. (Hybrids, on the other hand, will give birth to plants that exhibit different characteristics from each of the parents; it takes around seven generations for cultivars to stabilize.) Heirlooms come from plants that have been grown without crossbreeding for at least fifty years. They're found in all different colors, shapes, and sizes: perfectly oval; craggy and bulbous; heart-shaped; yellow, green, black, pink, striped, tie-dye. Their names are just as varied: Black Krim, Mr. Stripey, Brandywine, Cherokee Purple. These are the guys youll find at the farmers market at the peak of the season, the ones that just beg to be sliced and salted and eaten pretty much as is. Beefsteak tomatoes  Beefsteak tomatoes, which can be either heirloom or hybrid, are notable for their sizethey can weigh in at over a pound each, with a diameter of six or more inchesand their texture: They have smaller seed cavities than other types of tomatoes, giving them a greater ratio of flesh to juice and seeds. There are around 350 types of beefsteaks out there and although youll mainly see the red ones labeled as beefsteaks, they can come in all colors: pink, yellow, green, white, technicolor. The Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and Black Krim heirlooms, for example, are all beefsteak tomatoes, too. Plum tomatoes  Also known as Roma or paste tomatoes, plum tomatoes are oval-shaped and smaller than beefsteaks. They also have a lower water content compared to other types, with an almost chewy fleshmaking them particularly suited to sauce-making. These are the tomatoes youll see everywhere in Italy, the most famous type being the San Marzano. Baby tomatoes: cherry, grape, cocktail  And let's not forget the baby tomatoes: the cherries, grapes, and cocktails. Cherry tomatoes are the small, round guys with thin skins that squirt juice everywhere when you bite into them. Theyre super sweet and have a high water content, and they come in many colors. Grape tomatoes are the oblong, grape-shaped ones that youll often find in the grocery store; they have a lower water content and thicker skins than cherry tomatoes, which help them last longer. Cocktail tomatoes are larger than grape and cherry tomatoes but still of the small, sweet ilk. Theyre grown hydroponically and can be found in many grocery stores. If youre looking for a decent specimen outside of true tomato season, these are usually your best bet. From the book 'What's the Difference?' by Brette Warshaw. Copyright  2021 by Brette Warshaw. Published by Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission. Get the book! : Recreational Culinary Reference for the Curious and Confused $24 at Amazon  Brette Warshaw is the author of 'What's the Difference?' and the newsletter by the same name. Shes an editor at Apple News and has worked at publications such as Lucky Peach and Food52.