We know we’ve been going on and on about tomatoes for a few days now. But, we know a lot of you appreciate our depth when it comes to certain topics. One last post before we switch things up for a bit.
There’s a zillion kinds of tomatoes out there. You’ve probably heard things described, even by us, as “slicers” or “saucing” tomatoes. This might give the impression that “certain” tomatoes are to be used for “certain” things.
Perhaps in an ideal world, with acres of tomato crops at your disposal, this might be the case. But, if you’re at all like us, you’re growing a bunch of different varieties and might want to do a given thing with those tomatoes. Be it canning, slicing, saucing and so on.
Well, let’s dispel the myth. These designators are really just preferences or maybe strengths of a given type of tomato. They’re hardly the be all, end all of what you can use those tomatoes for.
For example, when we’re canning our tomatoes, we just jumble all of our different varieties together. We like to think of it as offering us a “terroir” of our growing season, illustrating the complexities of varieties and growing success we had each season. The same goes for virtually any other use.
The only place we really beak this precedent is between cherry and regular tomato types. Reason being, we don’t generally can cherry tomatoes. The reason for this is food safety, since removing skins is ideal. That’s a serious pain with cherry tomatoes.!
Sometimes it’s helpful to folks when we break down the mystery and really spell things out. You can use saucing tomatoes as a slicer. You can use slicer tomatoes to create a great sauce! Do what you want! You aren’t violating some unspoken rule when you do so!
We sometimes even get into this same use of language, but only because they’re apt descriptors for purpose. But, we certainly don’t mean to indicate exclusivity. Often its these “common sense” posts are well received because it says what everyone is thinking, but perhaps we weren’t quite sure of.
So, go do what you want. Remember, when we encounter so called “rules” when it comes to growing or using produce, we’re likely all ready breaking those rules and just haven’t said so!
