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Feature article
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Tomato Fest caps a tough growing season
By Fred Sauceman
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| Toothpicks, salt, pepper, and plastic plates—the tools for a tomato tasting |
“It’s nothing better than a tomato sandwich in East Tennessee in the summertime with a big cup of tea,” says Joy Cox with the Southern Appalachian Plant Society.
Joy dealt out tomato sandwiches all morning last Saturday, during Home-Grown Tomato Fest III, in Kingsport’s Glen Bruce Park.
Joy’s sandwiches were open-face, crowned with right-out-of-the garden tomato slices. And instead of lettuce, she pushed a bowl of fresh basil leaves for green crunch. Anchoring the tomatoes in place were smears of JFG Real Mayonnaise.
It was a day to celebrate summer, and at morning’s end, ribbons were awarded for taste, size and other tomato superlatives. But everyone who entered deserves a ribbon, really. Anyone who coaxed Big Boys out of August’s dry ground. Anyone who coddled German Pinks through near-drought conditions. Anyone who nursed Yellow Romas through blossom-end rot and pampered Parks Whoppers while praying for rain. They all warrant a word of congratulations, for this has been a tough tomato year.
Tina and Billy Robinson hauled out black plastic for the first time this spring and installed an irrigation system at their Scott County, Virginia, farm. That extra care was rewarded with a blue ribbon for the contest’s largest tomato, a Pineapple variety out of the Stripey family, weighing in at two pounds, four ounces.
Nancy Scott is a member of SAPS and one of the region’s most prolific gardeners. She has a roomful of ribbons from the Appalachian Fair for her gardening and cooking. Nancy advises compost and consistent water. This year, she raised 25 tomato varieties, down from 53 in earlier seasons.
“Lack of calcium can also be a problem,” says Nancy. “Someone advised me to put a couple of Tums tablets into the hole when planting tomatoes. And I’ve taken old fish out of the freezer and put them in the bottom of the hole for good nutrients.”
Nancy serves her Orange Strawberry, Mortgage Lifters and Lemon Boys with slices of fresh mozzarella cheese, leaves of basil and splashes of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Joe McCray spent Saturday morning sautéing garlic and onions, grilling tomatoes and running them through a Foley food mill. The Washington County office of the University of Tennessee’s Agricultural Extension Service dispensed sips of Joe’s Grilled Tomato Soup Saturday, along with some advice on home-canning the crop.
Katherine Long, county director for the UT Extension in Jonesborough, says her office frequently fields questions about the safe way to preserve tomatoes.
“People ask us why pressure-canning is preferable to the water bath method,” says Katherine. “The answer is that the acidity level in tomatoes nowadays is much lower than when our grandparents started canning, so a water bath does not always kill harmful microorganisms.”
Along with a resurgence of interest in heirloom varieties of tomatoes like Cherokee Purple is an increase in home-canning. Katherine says she’s heard from a number of people this summer who have had trouble finding pressure canners in stores.
This was the year Tina and Billy Robinson took the plunge into full-time farming. They say getting the plants out early and offering up a little prayer helped them fill their table at the Farmers Market with uniformly shaped yellow tomatoes from their gardens in Gate City and Hiltons, Virginia.
“People are going back to looking for more flavor in all the foods they grow,” says Katherine. “There is so much sodium in processed foods. What you grow has better flavor than what is shipped across the country. And now our supermarkets are becoming very pro-active in their marketing of local and regional products.
“People want something that doesn’t taste like cardboard.”
Singer Guy Clark put it this way: “I know what this country needs. It’s home-grown tomatoes in every yard you see.”
The Southern Appalachian Plant Society and the Downtown Kingsport Association staged a festival of thanks last Saturday. As toothpicks speared Husky Reds and Rutgers, you could almost taste the sun.
Tomato Fest Winners
Biggest Tomato
1st — Tina Robinson
2nd — Erwin Holman
3rd — Donna Horner
Ugliest Tomato
1st — Ken Saylor
2nd — Emily Neeley
3rd — Steve White
Prettiest Tomato
1st — Erwin Holman
2nd — Jamie Almeria
3rd — Donna Horner
Most Bizarre Tomato
1st — Tylor Winstead
2nd — Tina Robinson
3rd — JoAnn Bernard
Best Dressed Tomato
1st — Mary Faulkner
2nd — Brock Tierney
3rd — Marley Copland
Best Tasting
Red/Pink — Brandy Boy
John Isenberg
Yellow/Orange
(Tie)
Sweet Tangerine, John Isenberg
Orange Strawberry, Nancy Scott
Multicolor Category — Mr. Stripey
Richard Francisco, Tylor Winstead, Nancy Scott
Other — Aunt Ruby’s German Green
Larry Osborne
Best Salsa
1st — Renee Tate
2nd — Charlotte Lytz
3rd — John Scott
--------GoTriCities--------
Food writer Fred Sauceman, author of the book “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South — from Bright Hope to Frog Hollow,” is senior writer and executive assistant to the president for public affairs at East Tennessee State University. E-mail him at sauceman@etsu.edu.
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