My wife picking me up tomatoes from the store.

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

I've had people come to me in he store and ask me questions cause they think I work there .

That is why I never wear a blue shirt to Walmart or a red shirt to Target!

 

[Linda0818]

for winter tomatoes . . . Roma's are a pretty certain bet - long my 'go to'
more recently I've found the Campari more better tasting - much more expensive.... (sigh)

tomatoes-on-the-vine (primarily a Canadian hot house product..) ain't too bad if you have 4-5 days to let them "ripen"

buying (locally) 'out of season' stuff is absolutely a dicey adventure.

Those Campari tomatoes are amazing.

Roma's are okay as long as you let them ripen a bit more on the counter (I never put tomatoes in the fridge). But as expensive as the Campari tomatoes are, they're the only ones I'll buy during wintertime.

 

[Linda0818]

Tomatoes are all the same ... It's the prices that are d

This is my title thread tomato story. We were having a large party out back and feeding around 75 guest. dh was going to pick up liquor and I asked him to buy tomatoes. He called from the grocery to say they cost $2.49 lb. We needed 7 or 8 which weighs around 6 lbs. He didn't want to pay for them so he brought jalapenos instead!

 

[Linda0818]

Couldn't agree with you more.
In general, my purchasing of tomatoes goes down significantly off season . Not to sound like a tomato snob, but having had 2 or 3 months of fresh, perfectly ripe tomatoes at my hands, its almost impossible to find anything close. And Id settle for close, but tasteless and mushy, just hard to make that taste good. the grape tomatoes are usually ok.

I completely agree. If that makes me a tomato snob, then so be it. A summer filled with delicious, sweet, beautiful tomatoes spoils me rotten.

In winter, the only tomatoes I will buy are the Campari types. For a store-bought tomato, they're usually pretty tasty.

Edit: well, jeez... I posted this not realizing I had already posted in this thread in December.

 

[dr morbius]

Tomatoes are all the same ... It's the prices that are different!

If you're making tomato soup, you want the round, juicy tomatoes that come on the vines. If you're making tomato sauce, you want plum tomatoes - ideally, as close to actual San Marzano tomatoes as you can get. If you're making cheeseburgers it's hard to beat a beefsteak tomato. Lots of pasta dishes use cherry tomatoes, cut in half. Then there are heirloom tomatoes, often not worth the price but when in season can be unforgettably delicious.

This only scratches the surface.