Best Paste/Sauce tomato?
 

I really need to get in gear. I'm looking for recommendations on the best paste/sauce tomato that you have grown. Hopefully they will thrive in SoFl (zone 10?) and have superior flavor. We get plum or Roma's at the restaurant and I want something that has real flavor.

What say you?

I've found that heirlooms make the best sauces. I tried many paste tomatoes over the years and keep coming back to my favorite eating tomatoes for the best tasting sauce and salsa. A good one is Wes. Few seeds and balanced flavor, but using one type of tomato for processing taste inferior to me compared to mixing all types.

I wanted to add that when using beefsteak tomatoes for processing, halving then squeezing the seeds and juice out prior to running them through a foodmill saves tons of time and you can then save all your seeds. 2 birds 1 stone. I also like to do that then roast them in the oven on broil for 10 mins or so. The skin comes right off and your tomatoes will be much dryer which also saves time.

I've yet to find a paste tomato with great flavor, but I still usually find room for a couple of plants. The best for me has been Hungarian Italian, great production and the least blossom end rot of any I've ever tried.

This year I'm trying Wes and Kosovo for the first time, hoping that they'll eventually be replacements for the paste, with the added bonus of being something that I'll actually want to eat fresh (unlike most pastes).

Fred has an orange paste that I thought was very good. Yield was tremendous:
[url]https://store.growartisan.com/product/orange-caprese-tomato[/url]

I grew a green plum variety two years ago called Prune Verte. I didn't really care for them fresh, but I got the impression they would make an interesting green sauce.

A few years ago, I grew a hybrid paste called Pompeii. I thought it was an heirloom when I bought the seed, but it's a hybrid. It did well for me, hardly any BER and good flavor.

I've grown many paste/sauce tomatoes in the past but a couple of decades or so switched to using almost entirely heart shaped varieties of the heirloom type since most have much better flavor and few seeds.And many others have done the same thing.

Another negative for the common roma type paste ones is that they are very susceptible to BER (blossom end rot) as well as Early Blight(Alternaria solani).

Of the paste tomatoes that I think DO have good taste they would include and not in any order and only listing a few

Heidi
Opalka
Martino's Roma
Sarnowski Polish Plum
Mama Leone
Jersey Devil
Ludmillla's RedPlum
Casino
Kiev
Tony's Italian
Albenga
Liguria
Kukla's Portuguese Paste

If you need a place to go to find descriptions,comments,seed sources, etc., please go to Tania's superb data base if you don't already know about it.

[url]http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Tatiana's_TOMATObase_-_Heritage_Tomatoes[/url]

Hope that helps,

Carolyn

I think making "paste" is something of way past. Most canners nowadays just make sauce. And to make sauce, you can make them from any and all good tasting heirloom/op tomatoes. Most so-called paste tomatoes that I know of (Roma, San Marzano ) do not have great taste.
I make sauce for canning from a mix of everything that I grow. Then I am not a big time canner/jarrer. IMO

Most any good tasting tomato will do. I grow a few San Marzano plants each year, but they haven't been as productive as I like, so they are always largely supplemented with the many leftover non-paste tomatoes I have. If making sauce, I quarter all the tomatoes and let them sit in a large colander for about 30 minutes to drain, then run them through my mill to extract the seeds and skin. If making juice, I quarter and process immediately and reprocess the scrap again to extract even more juice.

I think there are some really good determinate hybrid Plum shaped sauce tomatoes available if you want a big crop all at once for canning/ cooking. Viva Italia is one. The OP Roma VF is also well known and commonly available in garden centres in my area. If you want indeterminate OP, there are lots of European origin. I have not had issues with BER beyond a couple of the earliest fruits on paste types In my garden so feed them well and water consistently to avoid that problem for the most part.
Tomatoes bred for cooking need cooking to bring out the flavour and are not that great fresh so if you want a plant that is good for both I also grow heart varieties although the strong traditional tomato taste can be lacking depending on the variety. I like to use black tomatoes in my sauce as well, they add a richness and a darker colour.
Enjoy your garden whatever you choose!
KarenO

[QUOTE=carolyn137;610868]Another negative for the common roma type paste ones is that they are very susceptible to BER[/QUOTE]

Carolyn, I have a theory that it is the oblong shape of the fruit that make pastes get BER, more so than just being pastes. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that idea? Oblong cherries get BER just as bad for me as any roma variety, yet the cherries have a much higher water content. They have nothing in common at all with a roma, except for the shape.

I think the shape of a variety's fruit is the most predictive trait regarding BER. To further advance that theory, I don't think I have ever had a heart-shaped variety get BER. That shape resists it the most.

So that's my theory. I seem to keep testing it every year, by somehow managing to let my soil dry out too much, even though I'm not trying to do so. I have mostly given up on growing anything that isn't round or heart-shaped.

[QUOTE=Cole_Robbie;610949]Carolyn, I have a theory that it is the oblong shape of the fruit that make pastes get BER, more so than just being pastes. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that idea? Oblong cherries get BER just as bad for me as any roma variety, yet the cherries have a much higher water content. They have nothing in common at all with a roma, except for the shape.

I think the shape of a variety's fruit is the most predictive trait regarding BER. To further advance that theory, I don't think I have ever had a heart-shaped variety get BER. That shape resists it the most.

So that's my theory. I seem to keep testing it every year, by somehow managing to let my soil dry out too much, even though I'm not trying to do so. I have mostly given up on growing anything that isn't round or heart-shaped.[/QUOTE]

I like your theory VERY much,thank you.:)

I have never seen BER on any hearts or the various Costolutos,nor San Marazanos,nor cherries,nor the large plum types, nor on most large beefsteak shaped ones,but YES, very often on the long reds many of which I mentioned above except Opalka seems to be the exception.

There are other long shaped ones of different colors, such as Bannana, etc., but I haven't seen BER on those but probably just statistical since I haven't grown that many.

Carolyn

[QUOTE=carolyn137;610868]I've grown many paste/sauce tomatoes in the past but a couple of decades or so switched to using almost entirely heart shaped varieties of the heirloom type since most have much better flavor and few seeds.And many others have done the same thing.

Carolyn[/QUOTE]

Well, that answers another question I've always wanted answered, "Why the big interest in heart shaped tomatoes?" Few seeds and flavor. But do hearts have a firm flesh like the Roma style? I've found many beefsteak varieties are just too juicy and not firm enough to hold up to making sauce. They require more cooking that affects their flavor.

Thanks for feedback.I think Im going to try a heart shaped tomato for sauce and salsa and see what results I get

I like the hearts for a few reasons. I don't have enough space to grow separate kinds of tomatoes for each use. I like the hearts fresh, cooked, for sauce and for canning. I used to can with beefsteak tomatoes but most of the beefsteak varieties have a big core to be cut out. The hearts don't have that. It makes canning or sauce prep faster and easier. The hearts don't have a lot of seed/gel but they're not dry and mealy like some of the paste types I've had, and they have more flavor raw than the paste varieties I've tried, as well. A lot of paste tomatoes have to be cooked a while to concentrate their flavor. I think you might like the hearts.

[QUOTE=ChefBertMor;611019]Well, that answers another question I've always wanted answered, "Why the big interest in heart shaped tomatoes?" Few seeds and flavor. But do hearts have a firm flesh like the Roma style? I've found many beefsteak varieties are just too juicy and not firm enough to hold up to making sauce. They require more cooking that affects their flavor.

Thanks for feedback.I think Im going to try a heart shaped tomato for sauce and salsa and see what results I get[/QUOTE]

You have two options as I see it.

Most will just simmer the sauce longer in an open pot to get it to the consistency they want.

Others will add some typical harder fleshed roma types to the stuff and that usually results in a thicker sauce quicker,but not with the flavor that many prefer.

Carolyn

Shannon's

Ive grown it for many many years and find it to be my favorite. Meaty, little seeds, and full of flavor of course. I've made sauce from strictly Shannon's seeds and the flavor was intense.
PM me if you'd like seeds. Look around here for pics and descriptions.

Greg