A garden in north Louisiana, USA.

BACKGROUND OF QUESTION:
Am recalling tomatoes raised by
father when I was a child. He
planted several varieties, all very
acidic (which is what I prefer).

I recall that one variety would
come up year after year without
being replanted. Dad called
them TOM-a-toes (the caps for
stressed syllable) and, sometimes,
"wild tomatoes." They would
come up along the edges of
the garden each year from fruit
that had fallen on the ground the
prior year and were more hardy,
more drought resistant, more
parasite resistant and more disease
resistant than any other variety --
and produced all summer long,
while other varieties produced
early, or late, or lost their blooms
prematurely in high temperatures.

The only disadvantage of the
TOMatoes, so far as I can recall,
was their small for use in a
sandwich. For salads, they were
perfect. Some would ripen when
not much larger than a marble.
They were acidic and rich in taste
and seemed to have a long shelf
life, as best I recall.

In recent years no tomatoes I have
purchased as supermarket produce,
nor that I have grown from plant
sets purchased at a supermarket or
at a seed and feed store, have been
acidic enough for my taste (despite
the fact I have ASKED for the
most acidic varieties available.
Last year, HOWEVER, a neighbor
raised some TOMatoes,
and gave some to me, and they were
like the ones I remembered from
childhood. Afterward that neighbor
took a job in another city and we
have lost contact.

QUESTIONS:

1. Are all TOMatoes the same?
2. Are they really capable of
growing in the wild?
3. Can you tell me where I might
get some seeds to get some
started in my garden, with a
reasonable expectation they
will come up yearly if I prepare
a special bed for them?

Any information or advice will
be appreciated.


g

I'm sorry I can't help you with this, but if you find some seed, please let
us know, because I'd like some too.

Cindy

Cindy,

This may sound like something out of Hansel and Gretel, but there is a very
elderly woman who lives in Miller
County, Arkansas... if only she is still living alone up there.

Friend David (from Lafayette, Louisiana) and I like backpacking and,
normally, go to the mountains, but were
scouting for hiking places and were on a dirt road in the hill forest
country when we saw her sitting in the cab of an old abandoned wrecked
automobile, with no doors, as if waiting for someone to come along. We
stopped to ask her if she needed assistance and saw a double barrel shotgun
laying across her lap. She said, no, she was just waiting for the mailman to
deliver her monthly SS check to her mailbox, and had the shotgun because her
check had been stolen the month before. (Whew !)

She was at least eighty -- eighty-five, maybe.

At that moment, the mailman drove up to her box and put mail in it and went
on. She unloaded the shotgun and went and got the mail out of the box and
then said that as a matter of fact she did need some assistance with
something. Her hand rail on the steps of her cabin had broken and she had
fallen a few days earlier. She showed us a badly
bruised and swollen knee and elbow. So we with her down that narrow
driveway, jumping water-filled mud holes and
climbing over a couple of fallen trees -- looking at each other wondering
what the heck we had gotten ourselves into.

Her old cabin looked like something out of the 1800s. I am not making this
up. It had a rusted tin roof, was heated by a wood stove, had a shallow
well outside. And the forest looked as if it were trying to close in around
it. She literally was living the way people did a hundred years ago.

But (you MUST have been wondering where I was going with all this), she had
a garden you would not believe.

Turns out she had been widowed decades ago, had two grown sons -- one who
lived in Vivian, La. and had been trying to get her to come and live with
him and his wife for years, and another who lives in California who writes
to her maybe twice a year.

Her hand rail was rotted and was broken and I told her I had some treated
lumber at my fishing camp down on
Black Bayou Lake and we would come back the next day and rebuild the
handrail and her front steps, too.

David and I used to stop by and check on her when we passed through on the
way to hiking trails. We called her (fondly, I promise you) "the witch."
She was anything but witchy.

But we haven't been up that way in a couple of years now.

Garden... garden... this is about garden. It was not rectangular but,
rather, went out into the woods like the spokes of a wheel. More than once,
I stopped by there and repaired something for her (leaks in the roof I
sealed with roofing
compound, rusted out stove pipe once, put a new rope on the well
pulley...etc.)

But she always paid with something out of her garden. And one of the things
she had in that garden was tom'atoes.

She grows castor trees for shade over her yard. They get HUGE ! (They are
deadly poison, so not many people raise them nowadays.)

I'm almost scared to go up there and find that cabin vacant... but I've just
put it on my do-list to go and check on her in the next week or two...
hoping she is okay... and, also, hoping she has some tom'ato seeds.

Gosh ! I didn't mean to write a book here.

One way or another, I'll find some seeds or some sets. Most likely, if I
find some, they will be in some old timer's garden up in that part of the
country.

Will let you know.

g



"Cindy" wrote in message
. ..
I'm sorry I can't help you with this, but if you find some seed, please
let us know, because I'd like some too.

Cindy

On Sat, 09 Apr 2005 12:47:11 -0500, g wrote:

QUESTIONS:
1. Are all TOMatoes the same?
2. Are they really capable of
growing in the wild?
3. Can you tell me where I might
get some seeds to get some
started in my garden, with a
reasonable expectation they
will come up yearly if I prepare
a special bed for them?
Any information or advice will
be appreciated.

I purchase all my seeds from a site called "Souther Exposure". They have
seeds suited for our warm/hot climate and varieties I am not able to find
anywhere else. On their site there's a tomato listed they call "Currant
Tomato". You can read about it on one of their pages. Go he

http://www.southernexposure.com/Merc...egory_Code=TOM

"CURRANT TOMATOES (Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium) Currant tomatoes are
essentially wild tomatoes, little changed by domestication. Vines are long
indeterminate with an open growth habit and generally good disease
resistance. Fruits are the size of a berry, 1/2" to 3/4" in diameter.
Flavor is intense, sweet and piquant. They are specially suited as salad
accents and for the specialty restaurant trade."

Sounds very close to what you are describing, doesn't it?

--
//ceed

On Sat, 09 Apr 2005 23:21:21 GMT, "g" wrote:

Gosh ! I didn't mean to write a book here.

As far as I am concerned, Gil, you can go right on ahead on this.

Rusty Mase
Austin, Texas

CEED: Sounds EXACTLY like them. Here's hoping. Thank
you. A rose by any name, perhaps...

And, speaking of names, come to think of it, three of the favorite
fish in Louisiana a white perch, sacolet (sack'-oh-lay) and
crappie (crop'-ee). They're all the same fish, actually ! Which
name was used once depended on what part of the state you were in.
Now that there has been so much geographical dispersion you can
hear any of the three names used, in just about any barbershop.

CINDY: Will let you know as soon as I have some of the seed,
by whatever means.

RUSTY: Your message is appreciated. In a world too
enamored with the trappings of wealth and fame and position,
there is not as much appreciation as once was for individuals
with the courage to choose roads less traveled, or the strength
to prevail on their own terms. Thank you for sharing interest
and caring for one of the special ones.

g




"ceed"
ceed@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqr stuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com
wrote in message newsp.sozoosq721xk10@bob...
On Sat, 09 Apr 2005 12:47:11 -0500, g wrote:

QUESTIONS:
1. Are all TOMatoes the same?
2. Are they really capable of
growing in the wild?
3. Can you tell me where I might
get some seeds to get some
started in my garden, with a
reasonable expectation they
will come up yearly if I prepare
a special bed for them?
Any information or advice will
be appreciated.

I purchase all my seeds from a site called "Souther Exposure". They have
seeds suited for our warm/hot climate and varieties I am not able to find
anywhere else. On their site there's a tomato listed they call "Currant
Tomato". You can read about it on one of their pages. Go he

http://www.southernexposure.com/Merc...egory_Code=TOM

"CURRANT TOMATOES (Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium) Currant tomatoes are
essentially wild tomatoes, little changed by domestication. Vines are long
indeterminate with an open growth habit and generally good disease
resistance. Fruits are the size of a berry, 1/2" to 3/4" in diameter.
Flavor is intense, sweet and piquant. They are specially suited as salad
accents and for the specialty restaurant trade."

Sounds very close to what you are describing, doesn't it?

--
//ceed

On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 03:18:51 GMT, "g" wrote:
And, speaking of names, come to think of it, three of the favorite
fish in Louisiana a white perch, sacolet (sack'-oh-lay) and
crappie (crop'-ee). They're all the same fish, actually!

Well, while you are running around in Cajun Country, see if you can
find some gardener making a fermented pepper hot sauce. My Dad was
half Cajun and he used to mention jars of pepper sauce that people
kept around to dip some out of for cooking. He just canned his
peppers and never made a sauce from them.

There are several sources of these recipes on the internet and I am
going to experiment with at least one recipe this summer. I have a
stand of peppers I think are "Macho" peppers from Southern Mexico that
are close to pequin peppers. If I screen these to keep out the
Mockingbirds I can harvest several pounds of these small peppers. The
recipe may be just mashing the peppers and adding natural vinegar and
salt.

Rusty Mase
Austin, Texas

Will let you know.


Great! And great story. I hope the lady is all right.

Cindy

Rusty,

Hey, right on ! Never thought about home made hot sauce,
but now that you mention it the commercial hot sauce makers
DO ferment the peppers.

Here goes one man's taste again (as with best tasting tomatoes
being for my taste the more acidic the better); but my favorite
commercial Louisiana red hot sauce is always the cheapest
brand on the shelf. And this has nothing to do with price. It
has to do with the fact that the cheaper ones TASTE better.
The difference, I suspect, is that the more expensive brands
(no criticism if that is what others prefer) are distilled or
something. Whatever it is, all that is left is the HOT, and not
much of the FLAVOR; so I go for the cheaper brands
every time. And that doesn't save money, actually, because
where I would use six drops of Tabasco on a plate of Cajun
red beans and rice, I'll use at least a teaspoon of Evangeline
brand or Red Devil brand and enjoy the flavor without being
miserable.

Everybody knows at least one dude who brags about how he
likes his peppers the hotter the better. Often that's the same
guy who wears no jacket on a freezing day and tells you
he's not cold, while his arms get like chicken skin and turn
blue.

Some peppers that look almost exactly like cayenne's are not
hot at all. If planted close to their look-alike cayenne cousins,
however, bees will play a joke on you -- cross pollinating
them. Never say a mild pepper on a cayenne bush, but now
and then a hot pepper will turn up on a mild pepper bush.

Anyhow, you're in luck. David is kin to every Cajun (Acadian,
for those who don't know it) ever born, if not by blood, then
by marriage somewhere out among the cousins and all. Show
him a Verett, a Langlois, a Landrieu, a Thibodaux, a Boudreau,
Lebeau or LeBlanc... stir... let talk for five minutes... and they're
likely to end up discovering a cousin or something in common.
David's wife is kin to prior Louisiana beauty queen Ali Landry,
(David and I want to believe), and has talked with Ali by email
a few times comparing details on some same name relative or
another. No direct hit, so far, but here's to persistence.)

David does at least half the cooking for his wife and kids, just
as I do for my wife and me, and he is always game for trying
a new recipe. One of David's specialties is fermenting grapes
and muscadines. The same equipment would work for a
batch of red hot sauce. Aerobic is best for vinegars and non-aerobic
for the other stuff. Also, we have a mutual friend who has a PhD
in biology and is a world class authority on vinology (grapes
wild and domesticated, grape taxonomy, climate preferences of
certain varieties, grape diseases, etc. from every continent)... in
addition to being a C---A--; so between the three of us we can
probably get word out among several hundred people on what
we're looking for, pretty quickly.

Some Cajun's will laugh at you if you ask for measurements,
though. When I make a pot of seafood gumbo, I never do it the
exact same way twice and -- if I didn't use a tasting dish I could
never get it right. (You use a small ladle, pour a taste in the dish
and taste out of the dish. Then you know by instinct, after a while,
just how much of something to add to fine tune it.)

I'll send David a message right now, and ask him to start the ball
rolling.

problem: Some of the best cooks don't measure
anything and laugh if you ask them to specify. When I cook
gumbo I could NEVER get it right without a tasting bowl. (No
I don't stick the spoon back in the pot after sipping from it.)

It's no trouble at all... so, if you don't hear back from me on it
in a few days, don't hesitate to remind, okay?


g



"Rusty Mase" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 03:18:51 GMT, "g" wrote:
And, speaking of names, come to think of it, three of the favorite
fish in Louisiana a white perch, sacolet (sack'-oh-lay) and
crappie (crop'-ee). They're all the same fish, actually!

Well, while you are running around in Cajun Country, see if you can
find some gardener making a fermented pepper hot sauce. My Dad was
half Cajun and he used to mention jars of pepper sauce that people
kept around to dip some out of for cooking. He just canned his
peppers and never made a sauce from them.

There are several sources of these recipes on the internet and I am
going to experiment with at least one recipe this summer. I have a
stand of peppers I think are "Macho" peppers from Southern Mexico that
are close to pequin peppers. If I screen these to keep out the
Mockingbirds I can harvest several pounds of these small peppers. The
recipe may be just mashing the peppers and adding natural vinegar and
salt.

Rusty Mase
Austin, Texas

Cindy, Rusty, Ceed,

Letting you know... I've just ordered a packet of EACH of the
kinds of "currant tomatoes," ceed told about.

The only word that puzzles me is the word "sweet."

Cindy, am STILL going to go up and check on her in the next
few days. Talk about mixed feelings. I don't know what I
would want to find out. I doubt she would ever be happy in
assisted living, or in the city with her son. If offered a choice
of where to breathe her last, I think it would be where she has
spent her life.

I don't want to wish... just accept. Maybe some people would
not agree...


g


"Cindy" wrote in message
. ..

Will let you know.


Great! And great story. I hope the lady is all right.

Cindy

On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 19:32:07 GMT, "g" wrote:

............ One of David's specialties is fermenting grapes
and muscadines. The same equipment would work for a
batch of red hot sauce.

These were more of a small wooden container like a deep bowl with a
loose cover that you kept on the counter in the kitchen. Probably at
most a pint or two. I am thinking that this is just a salt
fermentation like you do with sauerkraut. We made sauerkraut in a
small 2.5 gallon crock where you only fermented a dozen heads of
cabbage at a time and then canned it for close to immediate use.

Rusty Mase
Austin, Texas

"Rusty Mase" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 19:32:07 GMT, "g" wrote:

............ One of David's specialties is fermenting grapes
and muscadines. The same equipment would work for a
batch of red hot sauce.

These were more of a small wooden container like a deep bowl with a
loose cover that you kept on the counter in the kitchen. Probably at
most a pint or two. I am thinking that this is just a salt
fermentation like you do with sauerkraut. We made sauerkraut in a
small 2.5 gallon crock where you only fermented a dozen heads of
cabbage at a time and then canned it for close to immediate use.

Rusty Mase
Austin, Texas

Rusty,

My grandmothers, and my mother, made many a batch of sour kraut from
cabbage raised in their family gardens. They used crock pots. The crock
pot was kept covered with a 'boiled' cup towel, to keep dust from getting
into it and a wooden lid (not air tight) was put on top of that.

I'm curious what kind of wooden box might be used. In the first half of
the 20th century lots of wooden boats were still in use. The water-swollen
wood would seal itself, and not leak. When out of the water, a boat would
develop cracks, where the boards shrunk away from each other. To avoid
that, people had to keep them submerged or keep water inside them. After
it was a few months old, a wooden boat would usually leak, regardless.
In those days it was common policy to take a bailing can along when going
out in one -- or in a large boat, such as a shrimp boat, a bilge pump was
required to keep the water pumped out.

Unless it's just a nostalgia thing, I would opt for a crock pot.

The customary thing for hobbyist wine making nowadays is lowboys (the
kind of five-gallon jug normally seen turned upside down in old-fashioned
water coolers. Glass is best. A rubber cork with a hole through it is
tightly inserted into the small hole at the top, after the fruit (or fruit
and
sugar) are put into the topped (usually boiled first) and some antiseptic
solution (such as a mixture of bleach and water) is used to sterilize
thoroughly,
beforehand). A gadget (also sterilized carefully) is inserted through the
rubber
cork and holds a small amount of fluid (some use a little vodka or gin) in a
P-trap
conformation, to act as a barrier against outside air getting in.

The open crock (covered to keep dust out) does not work with wine-making,
unless one wants a wine vinegar.

I remember that Fleishman's yeast (the cake kind was preferred) was used to
start the fermentation in crock pots. Some wine hobbyists use special
yeasts
that are alleged to make better-tasting wines or beers.

There are lots of other factors in fermenting. I've never heard it called
'brewing'
in connection with anything but alcohol making.

Where air is allowed to get to the fermentation (aerobic fermentation) the
result is usually vinegar. Where air is kept away from the process (some
breweries even use sealed stainless steel tanks and, once the fruit and
sugar
have been put in, pump nitrogen in to force air out).

If I were going to try to make a batch of red hot sauce (like Tabasco or
Evangeline brand or Red Devil brand or Louisiana brand) I would use a
crock pot. If I wanted to use wood, I would purchase a small used whiskey
or wine keg.

Some woods would put a bad flavor into the mix. Even oak, if I understand
correctly, has to be cured and charred inside, to seal it. The charcoal
acts, also
to remove from wine or whiskey, some impurities (and hence some possible
flavor influences you would not want).

I would recommend being very careful about the construction or purchase of
a wooden container. Obviously no one would want treated wood (containing
arsenic and/or other poisons put in to protect lumber from molds and
bacteria).
Cedars (of which cypress is a family member) have some antiseptic and
insect-repellent properties, which might retard yeast reproduction, and
might
require conditioning in ways to reduce the agents causing these, before they
would allow fermentation.

Generally I would just use a crock pot -- about a three gallon size -- and
bypass
the issues wooden containers might raise (other than a pre-used wine or
whiskey
cask), to avoid any flavor problems, interference problems (with
fermentation)
or possible toxin problems.

g

My gramma used one of those big old 5-gal. crocks, with a wooden lid. Oh,
the stench if you got too close....sauerkraut was darn good, though.

Cindy

Cindy,

I've never liked 'Bavarian' Sour Kraut. It is sweet. Same goes for
'Bavarian' buttermilk.

When I was a kid, and did not like anything strong... be it onions,
garlic... whatever... my maternal grandmother got me to try some sour kraut
that had fermented only about half the full term. That was perfect for me;
so, from then on, she would put up a few small jars and put my name on them.

Just as with my preference for some of the cheaper brands of red hot sauce
(as I was telling Rusty), I like some of the cheaper brands of sour kraut.
The less expensive hot sauce has more flavor. The less expensive sour kraut
has less.

But that's just one man's preference... not a judgment as to which is better
for anyone else.

One of my favorite dishes is country pork ribs, sautéed done and then
simmered in sour kraut and onions with a little white pepper. (Some sour
kraut brands already are salty, and no salt is needed. If they have little
salt, a little bit
is needed.

I like these over mashed Irish potatoes.

(Unlike my German friends, I do NOT like the cubed Irish potatoes cooked
with vinegar added. It toughens them.
But, once again, no judgment rendered. To each his own preferences.)

g

"Cindy" wrote in message
...
My gramma used one of those big old 5-gal. crocks, with a wooden lid. Oh,
the stench if you got too close....sauerkraut was darn good, though.

Cindy

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 14:59:35 GMT, "g" wrote:

Unless it's just a nostalgia thing, I would opt for a crock pot.

Would be more sanitary, for sure! I will invest in a pound of fresh
serranos and see what happens. Even a glass beaker would work.

The open crock (covered to keep dust out) does not work with
wine-making, unless one wants a wine vinegar.

My Dad must have been a brute-force vintner!. The crock was just
covered with a cloth to keep out bugs. He added enough sugar to
produce a high alcohol content. Even at that he often added Everclear
when he bottled it. So these were sweet, stout wines. I do not think
you could make a delicate wine out of muscadines, elderberries, and
other southern fruits. If you lived in the Northern US, hard apple
cider would have been the choice.

There are better technologies now for home wine making.

Some woods would put a bad flavor into the mix.

But that might have been part of the process. My Granddad made good
whisky during the Prohibition by buying moonshine and aging it in
charred wooden barrels he had made by the local cooper. These small
barrels - two gallons or so - were sized to be fastened to the back
runners of rocking chairs and the frequent rocking helped age the
whisky.

Rusty Mase
Austin, Texas