I’ve long been on record about the decade-long infatuation over heirloom tomatoes – just because farmers can grow them, doesn’t mean they should grow them, especially if the soil and climate aren’t right to produce tasty tomatoes, or the farmer(s) aren’t prepared to wait until they’ve ripened to pick them. There is also the decade-long misunderstanding that if a tomato has a ‘name’ it must be an heirloom - this is not the case. And finally, there is the misunderstanding that all heirlooms are superior to all hybrids - remember, the “heirloom” designation is merely a convention, and most heirlooms started out as hybrids; indeed, there are many delicious, hybrid tomatoes out there that have been created over the last four or five decades. The Puget Sound is not the best place to grow tomatoes, given the variability of the weather, even during the best of summers, so I tend to stick with a few farms that are located in microclimates more suitable for tomatoes and whose farmers have a good feel for what to plant and when to pick.
Given all that, this has been a pretty good summer for tomatoes despite the atrocious weather up until early August here in Seattle. This past weekend there seemed to be a cornucopia of striped tomatoes in the Farmers’ Markets, and that’s where I got the inspiration for some Striped Tomato Galettes. I bought some Green Zebras and Red Zebras (hybrids), and some Striped Red Plum Tomatoes (aka, Tiger Striped Plum Tomatoes), and the even more rare Striped Yellow Plum Tomato (heirlooms). I used my favorite Cornmeal & Sour Cream Dough - with Ayers Creek Farm’s Roy’s Calais Flint coarse cornmeal. I also grated Black Sheep Creamery Pecorino on the dough before laying down the tomato slices, and then grated some Sardinian Pecorino on top after the galette came out of the oven. It made a marvelous starter for six.
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