Sep 3, 2007
Well, my wife and I just had our first tomatoes from that straggly
plant that I told you about last week. It's a "Better
Boy" variety, and I have been hovering near it and taking care of
it like a baby boy since we brought it home, or the verge of
extinction at the end of August. It's lost almost all of its
original leaves, but has put out lots of new ones, along with a
bunch of little yellow flowers, and (so far) one new tomato.
But we bought it - for just seven dollars, by the way - with a
whole lot of tomatoes on the plant. And today we ate the
first three, beautifully ripened and ...
Delicious! With that great umami taste!
Haven't heard about umami? It was identified in Japan a
decade or two ago as the fifth taste our tongues react to - along
with sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. The umami taste is rich,
deep, musky - well, if you've ever had a good tomato, that's what
you're tasting. Some meat and fish have this taste,
too... (And it's also the taste that monosodium glutamate
(MSG) brings to food.)
I'll keep you posted on how many more great tomatoes we get from
this plant that I rescued from oblivion....