I am a fruit junky, and I adore tomato umami more than any other vegetable produces. I do laugh when I consider their origin is modern day Mexico, but life in Italy without pomodoro isn’t a life.

https://mesubim.com/?s=tomato

Gennaro Esposito had by far the best Italian tomatoes I’ve tasted. Now I know many would debate it, but last summer asking three Michelin chefs for local tomatoes it was a disappointment until Gennaro handed me a crate, and I was blown away. These tomatoes are the real deal and we hand carried them to our kitchen in Greece.

In a country where Tomato is king, and Greek salad without tomato isn’t a Greek salad and it’s no wonder the Greeks also consider this fruit essential in their culinary adventures.

If you know the right folks, you get the very best of the best but for the most part tomato from Hollad or Italy is often used.

I actually hate those red fruits without any taste, and at one time we were obsessed with growing fruits, we had 40 varieties of tomato in our greenhouse. We considered our flock to be amongst the very best, and yes the secret is brackish water to develop more sweetness.

Pictured below on board the plane they hardly look ripe, but let me tell you they were absolutely stunning and perfect, and in a few days those unripe were hurdled to the path of ripeness.

Gennaro didn’t just give me a bag, he gave me a crate filled with the most incredible large sized tomatoes, and I will never forget the pleasure.

I want to explain one fact about tomatoes: each tomato has its own “cut” and you should explore how to cut them by variety. This is something you should experiment with, a long cut for long tomatoes and a short cut for small tomatoes, or as our friend and chef Adonia does it: https://mesubim.com/2014/09/12/tinos-tomato/ https://mesubim.com/2014/08/22/tothalassaki-herbed-salad/

And we have the likes of Parisian markets with the one and only Joel Thiebault, a great farmer who has hands down the most amazing tomatoes.