This is one of the few tomatoes that we have managed to pick before the chickens got to it. It is a different variety then the Orange Russian but the name tag was lost. This was a very tasty tomato. Firm, juicy, flavorful and quite the looker. Sadly my tomato romance came to a bitter end. About ten minutes after enjoying this beauty my throat started to swell and close up slightly. I ran to the mirror and looked down my throat to see a very red, puffy, itchy uvula and soft palate. Now don’t worry, I could still breathe so I didn’t rush to the emergency room, no ambulance was needed. I took two Diphenhydramine (generic Benadryl) and within 15 minutes I was mostly back to normal but very bummed. Apparently my lovely homegrown tomato was just too well, tomatoie.
When I was a kid I was sensitive to tomatoes, many kids are, but I grew out of it and went on to eat many a store bought hybrid variety and canned tomatoes feature heavily in my cooking because they are so easy to add to things. We think perhaps that the reason I had the reaction is that home/chemically free grown tomatoes have been shown in comparative studies to be more well, tomatoie then the hybrid varieties. Of course this is the whole reason I wanted to grow heirloom tomatoes in the first place, I wanted more meat, more flavor, less uniformity. What I got was histamine reaction. No more heirloom tomatoes for me. I have since eaten cooked tomatoes in pizza sauces and other foods and have not had any reaction. Cooking the tomato breaks down the protein that is associated with triggering the allergic response (or so all the medical sites on google tell me). So at least for now I don’t have to give up my canned tomatoes. I have not tried cooking any of out tomatoes since this incident mostly due to these:
The chickens have thwarted all our attempts to keep them out of the tomatoes and have eaten or at least pecked to death any that have shown any change in color. I will have to eat my tomatoes as fresh eggs and eventually dumplings.
Next year we are probably going to skip the tomatoes, it just doesn’t feel worth it to try again when I can’t eat them fresh. Instead we will grow more squash or give lettuce a shot.
But it is rather ironic, don’t you think?
I would gladly take a few tomatoes from you to harvest their seeds so they can have a home in my future garden, and then eventually end up in my canning process
Poor you, beaten by a tomato. Our summer has been so dismal that all our toms are still green. Maybe they would be better for you
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