A Taste of Summer

     No day trip down to the Jersey shore was complete without stopping at one of those roadside produce stands along the White Horse Pike.  There were cantaloupes, watermelons and cucumbers galore, but what everyone really wanted was a basket of Jersey tomatoes.  After all, they define a Jersey summer as definitively as the cheesesteak defines Philly.  Those heavy, orange-red, slightly flattened spheres were thin skinned & meaty with rich flesh, almost jelly-like seed pockets and an intense sweet-tart flavor.  Sliced thick and slathered with Helmann's mayonnaise between two slices of Wonder Bread they were a meal all by themselves.

     But is there really such a thing as the Jersey Tomato?  Search through the Seed Savers Exchange among the 43,261 varieties listed and no, you won't find one with that name.  But we all recall that distinctive taste of summer so it must be real!!!

     More than likely the Jersey Tomato that we enjoyed back in the 1960s was officially known at the Rutgers Tomato, introduced in 1934.  It was prized on both sides of the Delaware River. The Heinz Company in Pittsburgh used them to make ketchup and Campbell Soup in Camden purchased them for their iconic condensed tomato soup.  But unfortunately since the Rutgers seed was never patented it was cross bred with other varieties by seed companies and lost it's distinctive flavor and texture.  Other tomatoes like the Beefsteak and the Ramapo have come along to fill the void but with less fanfare.

     So is it the variety, the climate or the geography that makes a tomato worthy of the moniker "Jersey Tomato?"  The state is blessed with light, sandy clay soil, ample water supply and months of warm days and cool nights.  And tomatoes grown in the Garden State, while not traveling well, are left to ripen on the vine, not gassed with ethylene while still green and shipped hundreds of miles to a produce bin in a far away market franchise.  That gives them better taste, the one we all remember fondly.

     But there is hope!  For the past 6 years Tom Orton & Jack Rabin, Rutgers University researchers have been collaborating with Dot Hall and Bill Bangs, 2 Campbell Soup retirees to breed a better, updated version of the tomato of our youth.





     I'm heading out this morning to get some Wonder Bread & Helmann's!