slkinsey

I've probably bought from 4-5 different vendors this Summer (ironically, I've never bought the ones from Paffenroth, an error of omission that your report will correct on my next visit!). I do often go to Stokes for one or two, because I have a pretty good relationship with the farmer and I usually buy herbs from them anyway. But they don't always have my favorite varieties (no Costoluto Genovese, for example). If I'm ever in front of a booth that seems to have a lot of heirlooms, and it's a grower I think has reliably good quality in general, and I see a cultivar I've been wanting -- I'll buy a few. I'm fairly cultivar-biased. I don't care for the green cultivars in general and find that the yellow or orange-fleshed ones don't often have the flavor profile I like, so I stay away from those cultivars (other people love them). I do need to try those German Striped tomatoes next time, though, because I'm told that they have a more tomatoey flavor than many of the yellow or orange tomatoes. I love Brandywines, and generally find that the purple/black varieties have the tomatoey flavor profile I'm looking for. All of which is to say that, if I see someone like Norwich Meadows Farm with a big table of cultivars I like, and especially if I can talk to the grower and he seems like he knows what he's doing and has specific recommendations based on my stated preferences, I'll buy from anyone down there. There are probably a few growers I haven't bought tomatoes from simply becasuse they don't sell other things I like, so I haven't got to know them.

That's what I'm saying, and why I don't buy the "decline in quality at the Greenmarket," if such a thing exists, as anything other than bad luck and weather (I haven't had a single heirloom from the USGM this Summer that wasn't delicious, but obviously can't speak for other people's experiences). There are, of course, other things that can ruin a Brandywine other than weather and the genetic/horticultural luck of the draw, but these tend to be the same things that make for bad supermarket tomatoes, namely: picking it early, refrigerating it, long transportation, perhaps hybridizing with a thicker-skinned variety for better storage/transportation properties, etc. But none of the USGM growers are doing these things. They're all ripening them on the vine, many of them are using hoophouse/tunnel systems with adjustible protection against frost and excess rain, they're picking the tomatoes the day before they are sold and transporting them a relatively short distance to the market, etc. I don't see what else they can possibly be doing better than they are already doing. Berried Treasures Farm, from whom Steven bought the horrible tomatoes, are extremely well-regarded growers. Their produce is highly sought after by high-end restaurants. The tomatoes didn't end up terrible because the people at Berried Treasures are screwups or don't know how to grow good heirloom tomatoes, and I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of their tomatoes were delicious this Summer (they certainly know good produce when they taste it, and if they were offering samples, that would indicate a certain level of confidence in their product). It seems to me that, if Steven is getting a bit more than the 20% mediocre heirloom tomatoes he experienced at his last visit to the USGM, and the likes of Mitch and myself are getting somewhere in the range of 0% to 1%, the reality is somewhere around 7% to 10% -- which is as good as I think one can reasonably expect with this kind of product. Again, maybe it's good luck this season for Mitch and me... maybe we've gone during times when heirloom tomatoes have been really good, we've happened to favor the growers who were having optimal weather that week and we've just not been unlucky enough to put our hands on a bad one. Maybe it's bad luck for Steven this Summer, maybe it was better luck for him in the past. You make a normal distribution curve, and simple statics will tell you that some people are going to have worse luck than others: 15.9% of the tomato buyers will experience more than one standard deviation better in average tomato quality, and 15.9% will experience more than one standard deviation worse; 2.3% will be more than two standard deviations better and 2.3% will be more than two standard deviations worse than average tomato quality. 2.3% of heirloom tomato buyers at the USGM is not a small number of people getting a high percentage of bad tomatoes! The question, I suppose, is whether the average quality has declined, and whether the curve has dramatically widened along with such a decline -- but Steven seems to be saying that he has experienced a greater percentage of "bad tomatoes" rather than that there has been a wholesale slide in heirloom quality across the board (this would not only make the average tomato lower in quality but would also make the "mindblowing tomato" increasingly rare, which does not seem to be the case). Rather, given the experience of Mitch and myself, it suggests that chance may have played a part.

Yea, that seems about right. There was certainly no visual-inspection basis for knowing those Berried Treasures tomatoes wouldn't be good. But, according to your own shopping experiment, you got eight out of ten in the range that you would describe as being within your 1997 expectations. Or, rather, you got 20% crap tomatoes, all from one grower. This may just be luck of the draw. Maybe you happened to get two bad tomatoes from them, maybe they've been having a bad week, maybe they're not very good growers, whatever. The microclimates at Stokes Farms (very near NYC in Jersey), Berried Treasure Farms (upstate NY near the West tip of Catskill State Park), Norwich Meadows Farm (even further upstate in the Chenango River Valley) and Eckerton Hill Farms (half way between Allentown and Harrisburg, PA) have to be quite different. That said, anyone who has been around non-commercial tomatoes for any length of time (e.g., every single tomato-grower who has posted to this thread, as well as my own experiences growing up with my mother's home-grown tomatoes) will tell you that sometimes the best tomatoes grown by the best grower will turn out to be crap anyway. Or, to put it another way, while you may not have bought any of them yourself, it's literally impossible that there weren't any crap heirloom tomatoes at the greenmarket in 1997. In my ten-plus years of regular shopping at the Union Square Greenmarket, I've had crap examples of just about everything. I've certainly had heirloom tomatoes from the USGM over the years that didn't appeal to me -- although to what extent those may have been due to cultivar or simply bad tomatoes is hard to quantify. Some of both, I imagine, although I've historically attributed it to cultivar (wishful thinking perhaps?). All of which is to say that I'm not willing to extend two bad tomatoes from one farm into "dramatic decline in average heirloom tomato quality at the Union Square Greenmarket."

In the NYC Greenmarkets, you're not allowed to sell it unless you grow it yourself. These are all actual farmers selling their own stuff. The guy at Norwich Meadows also recommended this cultivar as one of their best right now. I would have tried one, but was already laden with many tomatoes.

Sounds like a fun time, Steven. From what you describe, other than the terrible tomatoes from Berried Tresure, a luck-of-the-draw overripe tomato from Stokes and perhaps a slight bias against green-colored cultivars (which I share), these would all appear to be in the excellent-to-mindblowing category. That strikes me as being pretty good. These are natural products, and there is going to be some variation even in the tomatoes from an excellent grower like Stokes. As you've pointed out in the past, even Alain Ducasse can have an off-night -- and even Stokes can have a not-so-good tomato every so often. I have to say that I don't see how you could possibly have expected do to any better than you did on your trip -- and I don't care if it was 1997 or 2007. Out of ten tomatoes, you got two bad tomatoes from the same grower, one mediocre tomato past its prime from an established great grower, four tomatoes in the excellent-minus to excellent-plus category, and three in the mindblowing category. I can't believe that it was possible in 1997 to go to the Union Square Greenmarket, buy ten tomatoes and have them all turn out to be in the mindblowing category of your Stokes #1, Paffenroth and Eckerton samples. I also have to believe that part of our collective remembrance of heirloom tomatoes from 10-15 years ago has to do with their relative novelty at the time. Even something like the past-its-prime Stokes tomato would have tasted pretty good compared to supermarket tomatoes in 1992, and more importantly it would have looked and tasted different from anything we were getting around here. I can remember when Samuel Adams beer first came onto my radar in the 80s. It was a revelation, because all the American beer I had had up to that time was crap. I thought Samuel Adams must be the most delicious beer ever made, and had friends in college who regularly took orders and made weekend road trips from Wisconsin to New England to pick up cases of Sam Adams. Now, more than 20 years later, I've had enough American craft beer to have a different frame of reference. Whereas Sam Adams blew me away in 1987, it would register as "middle of the road" today and I'm unlikely to be impressed by their products. I could, I suppose, interpret this difference as "there's been a huge decline in quality of Samuel Adams," but since the brewing process is not so variable and the methods haven't changed, I recognize that it's me that has changed. I think the same thing may be at work here with heirloom tomatoes. It might be interesting to do a similar kind of sample in the three or so weeks we have remaining of heirloom tomato season, but talking with each grower and asking advice about which of their heirloom tomato cultivars to buy from them (e.g., if you're me it's: "I want something with an intense, concentrated tomatoey flavor, and I'm not so fond of the green varieties"). That might provide a more meaningful basis of comparison.

So, as chance would have it, after a trip down to Academy Records to get rid of a zillion CDs I don't want anymore, I decided to take a walk over to the Union Square Greenmarket to see what was what. Boy am I glad I did! I now have another favorite grower of heirloom tomatoes: Norwich Meadows Farm. They are an organic grower in, as you may imagine, Norwich, New York. They had what seemed like an enormous space and a ridiculous amount and variety of heirloom tomatoes for sale. I decided to give them a go to see if they were up to the level of my other guys. So I picked up a Brandywine and a few tomatoes called Costoluto Genovese that I always liked to buy in the markets in Italy during the summers. These have a very distinctive ribbed shape you can see about halfway down this page, and are very tender and juicy. Anyway, since none of the tomatoes were labeled as to cultivar, I asked after the name of the Italian tomatoes and mentioned my fondness for them. He said, "Well... Those are good, but if you want the stuff with the best flavor, I'd recommend a few other ones right now." I thought that was interesting and we talked a bit about the different varieties he had and what he thought about their flavor characteristics. We both agreed that we didn't care for the flavor of Green Zebra because it lacks a tomatoey flavor, and he sells a few other green-colored cultivars instead. Eventually, he said that if what I was looking for was an intense, concentrated tomatoey flavor I should buy his black cultivars. He was selling Paul Robeson, Russian Black (apparently different from Black Russian) and Black Cherry tomatoes. He gave me a sample, and quickly convinced me to add several of those to my order. Several tomato sandwiches later, I don't regret any of it. Apparently they grow all their tomatoes now using the hoophouse/tunnel method, where the sides can be rolled up so the vines are open to the air, but the sides can be rolled down to protect the tomatoes from excess rain, early frost, etc. So far, the only USGM growers I really haven't liked for heirloom tomatoes (and they are one of the original growers selling them at the greenmarket) are the guys who sell all the different kinds of peppers right at the apex of the two doglegs.

Right? It's definitely stupid to have uncoated rivets on interior PTFE-coated cookware. How hard can it be to spray on the coatings after the handle is riveted on. I have a nine-inch frypan I picked up for omelets at Bed Bath & Beyond a while ago. The body is made of extra-thick aluminum and I think the brand is called Invitations. It cost twelve bucks, and the rivets are fully PTFE-coated.

Ha! I must have misread the labels. They often put the Padano next to the Parmigiano. Still... 2 bucks a pound strikes me as a pretty small price for that jump in quality. If we consider that this prize-winning American-made product is approximately as good as high quality fresh Grana Padano (which is to say that it's not competing for parity with high quality fresh Parmigiano Reggiano) and it's only two dollars a pound less expensive... I don't know that that says great things about competing with the Italian product. It sounds to me like the American product will likely cost just as much as Italian product at approximately equivalent quality (which is to say that the people selling crappy, pre-grated or pre-cut dried out Parmigiano Reggiano for 14.95 will probably charge the same amount for equally crappy, pre-grated or pre-cut dried out Sartori Reserve SarVecchio if that product takes off). I'd think that the American product would have to undercut the Italian product of equivalent quality by at least 25% to make significant inroads. ETA: Has anyone tried Dry Jack? In the Cheese Primer, Steven Jenkins says: "A unique, original American cheese with a depth of flavor nearly rivaling that of Parmigiano-Reggiano. I like to use a mandoline to make heaping piles of feather-light, translucent wafers of this cheese to serve with melon or alongside dry Alalusian sherry of a special bottle of red wine." He lists Vella's Bear Flag Dry Jack as one of America's 25 best cheeses.

I take your point about freshness and storage conditions, but Bread Alone bread is fantastic. I don't think anybody in the city is making a bread that has quite the flavor of the Bread Alone organic whole wheat sourdough. If you grab a loaf in the morning either at the Greenmarket or at Fairway it tends to be quite fresh -- I imagine it's baked sometime after midnight, which is about as much as you can be sure of with a local bakery anyway. As you mentioned, some breads hold better than others, and a bread like Bread Alone's organic whole-wheat sourdough doesn't suffer much for a few hours' sitting around. I used to feel strongly about buying bread from local sources -- hey, it's New York City, why should we be getting bread from out of town? -- but Bread Alone changed my thinking on the matter. I'd definitely buy Bread Alone stuff at Fairway and stores like that. Once the bread is baked and transported to the market, the local bakeries lose their freshness advantage. There are many reasons, most too technical for me to get into in this thread in any detail without going widely off-topic, why sourdough breads have better storage properties (e.g., lactic and acetic acid act as preservatives) and also why whole wheat sourdoughs tend to have more true "sourdough flavor" compared to white sourdoughs (total acidity is dependent on the buffering power of the dough, which is higher in whole wheat doughs). So it's no surprise that their whole wheat sourdough is awesome. Neither Amy's nor Sullivan Street are hardcore sourdough specialists and can't compete on that basis (although it's worth noting that Bread Alone can't compete with, e.g., Sullivan's signature pane pugliese). Both Balthazar and Silver Moon have pretty outstanding pain de campagne and other rustic wholegrain and white sourdoughs that I've found to be better than any bread I've bought at places like Fairway. I can only assume this is related to freshness and other handling factors, since my experience is that Balthazar bread bought at Balthazar is a lot better than the same bread bought at Fairway. To my thinking, you're right on the money about BA's whole wheat sourdough boule. Not all of their breads are naturally leavened, by the way, only the ones called "sourdough" (they also call their sourdoughs "yeast free" which is unfortunate and inaccurate). The BA whole wheat sourdough boule definitely the one to get, especially if you're planning on keeping it around for a few days. I should hasten to add that I'm not saying the BA product isn't outstanding. I'm just questioning whether it's worth it to buy it at the greenmarket when you can get the exact same bread in several city groceries, and if you're willing to make a trip to get outstanding bread I think you can do better at the above-mentioned bread bakeries. This is all the more true because my experience is that the BA bread they're selling at the greenmarket is likely to actually be in worse condition than the BA bread you can get in the likes of Fairway, although this is probably fairly dependent on weather conditions (I've never understood buying bread from them at the greenmarket when it's raining).

This might be for another topic, but I don't believe that European eggs are necessarily any more dense or rich compared to American eggs. This is perhaps true when one compares American supermarket-level eggs to European supermarket-level eggs, because supermarket-level eggs are on average fresher and higher in quality in Europe (well, let's say France and Italy) than in America. However, I wouldn't say that, in my experience, European eggs are any more rich or dense than good-quality American eggs I've bought. The main difference is that European eggs tend to have a much darker yellow colored yolk, but this is merely a function of the pigmentation in their feed (marigold in particular), which I don't think has much of an impact on flavor, richness or density. One thing that does greatly affect density is age. The fresher the egg, the more dense the white and the less the white will spread from the yolk when it is fried, poached, etc. If greenmarket eggs seem significantly more dense than supermarket eggs, this is a function of age: the greenmarket eggs are only a few days old at most. For sure, any eggs you get from anyone at the greenmarket are going to be a lot better than anything you can get a the supermarket, and compared to the prices I've seen at Whole Foods, sometimes even less expensive.

Munchos are also an awesome vehicle for fish tartare.

If you cant get there first thing, Blue Moon will still have some very high quality stuff - the top of the line may be gone, but whatever they sell is still light years ahead of any retail...scallops, mussels, squid, flounder, and the like are still available after noon. Yea, everything they have is very high quality. My later remarks were more directed at the produce vendors. The main time-related worry with Blue Moon is that they might run out of something. I'm liking the baked goods from Bread Alone - (I think I first heard about their stuff from Fat Guy). Their whole grain loaves, baguettes, and boules are all organic and naturally leavened. Their whole wheat and plain sourdoughs are as good as I've had in the city. I suppose it depends on what kind of access you have to fresh baked bread. The Bread Alone stuff is very good compared to what you can get at, e.g., Fairway or Whole Foods. But compared to the best bakeries in the city... in my opinion the Bread Alone stuff doesn't compare well. Now, mind you, I'm sure that the Bread Alone people know what they're doing and make excellent bread. But there's only so good it can be when it has to be baked the evening before, schlepped two hours+ to the greenmarket from the Catskills, and stored more or less out in the open at much higher than ideal humidity. For artisinal hearth bread, I'm going to Silver Moon around the corner from my apartment, Sullivan Street Bakery or Amy's Bread when I'm in Hell's Kitchen or the Chelsea Market, and Balthazar Bakery when I'm downtown (the latter three "export" to various retail outlets, and the product available there doesn't measure up to the quality of the stuff sold at the bakeries). I don't think Bread Alone at the greenmarket can touch these places, but they can touch some of the prices if you know what I mean. I would love to try some of their stuff when it's in better condition, though. Edited to add: The above is less true for larger, longer-storing breads, such as a gigantic pain de campagne, although I'd still prefer to buy from an actual local bakery (Silver Moon makes 100% natural leavening for some of their breads, and I assume this is true of the others as well).

The oldest recipe of the Martinez of which I am aware is from Jerry Thomas: 1 wine-glass of Vermouth (2 oz) 1 pony of Old Tom gin (1 oz) 2 dashes of Maraschino (1/4 oz?) 1 dash of Boker's bitters Garnish with a quarter-slice of lemon in the glass (not sure if this means fruit or just peel) I would imagine that the vermouth back in those days was perhaps somewhat closer to Carpano Antica Formula -- which is to say, richer, less sweet and more herbal/bitter than Cinzano or M&R. JT says, "If the guest prefers it very sweet, add two dashes of gum syrup," which makes me believe that he thought it was already a sweet drink. Other recipes that come fairly soon after JT specify equal parts gin and vermouth, other kinds of bitters (or just generic "bitters") and leave out the maraschino in favor of either curaçao (which, per previous discussions here, was often so sweet and lacking in orange flavor that it was used as a generic sweetener) or just simple syrup. Even as recently as the Savoy Cocktail Book, the recipe for the Martinez is comprised of equal parts gin (no longer Old Tom) and vermouth with orange bitters and either curaçao or maraschino (curaçao being listed first). I'm not sure how we came to believe that maraschino is what makes a Martinez a Martinez, except that maraschino is in the earliest recipe we have. Interestingly, the Old Waldorf=Astoria Bar Book does not have a Martinez recipe. It does, however, have a Martini recipe consisting of equal parts Old Tom gin and Italian vermouth with orange bitters, a lemon twist and an olive garnish. With the exception of the olive, it's not dissimilar from recipes for the Martinez published 40 years earlier. As John points out, just as with many old cocktails such as the Manhattan, the ratio of gin to vermouth has been reversed in modern incarnations of the drink and now it is common to see a 2:1 ratio of gin to sweet vermouth (although, just as with the Martini and Manhattan, it is often rewarding to mix the drink in equal parts or even return to the vermouth-based original). One interesting modern Martinez-inspired drink that I like very much was developed by Chad Solomon. It consists of 2 ounces of gin, 1 ounce of bianco vermouth (a sweet white vermouth), 1/4 ounce of maraschino and a few dashes of bitters (John's Abbot's bitters being my preferred for this drink).

My favorites are: Stokes Farm for non-parsley herbs, and definitely for heirloom tomatoes. There are some guys right across from Stokes that sell amazingly huge, delicious cauliflower later in the season. I like Paffenroth Farms for parsley, onions on the stem, carrots, kale, chives, leeks (practically all white!), punterelle, radishes, baby fennel, baby beets, fresh garlic, etc. There are some other guys across the aisle and further down the dogleg that I like best for salad lettuce. Ronnybrook's milk and cream, especially from the greenmarket, are so far superior to any other locally available dairy that it's almost like a different category of product. Migliorelli Farms is good for greens such as broccoli rabe and the like. In the Spring, they're the go-to place for English shell peas, sugar snaps, and fresh borlotti. Knoll Crest Farms are worth the annoying wait and absurdly slow service for the best fresh eggs in the City. I also prefer their small chickens (around 3 pounds, which is perfect for roasting). Quattro's Farm can sometimes be hit-or-miss with poultry, in my experience. It's worth asking if they have any capons, but I find their chickens a bit to large for my tastes. On the other hand, it's the go-to place for things like fresh duck eggs. Blue Moon has amazing seasonal fish. Show up early and stand in line. Actually, this could be said of most of the best places a the Greenmarket. It's always been true that if you show up after around 10 AM, most of the very best is already gone. The mushroom guys selling button, crimini, oyster, etc. are always very good. There are a few other boots I go to at different times of the year... some people just down from Paffenroth on the same side sell the best asparagus in the Spring and the most tender Brussels sprouts in the Fall, and have amazing fresh onions on the stem for a few weeks in the spring. There are some other guys a little closer to the center on that same dogleg who have the best sweet corn (5 for $2) in white, yellow or bicolor. Don't bother buying anything baked. Coach has a booth. I've never had the impression the cheese they were selling was any better than their cheeses you can get in stores, or any different.

Yep. I'll have to add my voice to the chorus here: there's no reason to buy lightweight copper. And, really, the only copper light enough to make a difference is not actually designed for cooking (Mauviel's Table Service line). If you just like the looks of copper, you can always get All-Clad's Cop-R-Chef line, which is an aluminum core with stainless cladding on the inside and a thin copper cladding on the outside. In my opinion, however, you'd just be buying the maintenance hassle of copper with the performance characteristics of aluminum. If you want to get your daughter a lightweight ten-inch frypan she can flip, and if strength is an issue, you're better off going with stainless clad aluminum. Keep in mind, however, that a fully loaded frypan is going to be heavy no matter what metals are used in its construction. Also, with a ten- to twelve-inch frypan, there's no reason she should expect to be able to flip a full pan one-handed. I'd recommend taking her to a well-stocked cookware store, letting her try a variety of frypans to see which one is the most comfortable for her. Another consideration: if you want a pan for quick-frying, there are other choices. You could get a heavy-gauge carbon steel frypan. Cheap, light and great for quick-frying. Or, also great for quick-frying and with the added functionality that it can be used to do quick braises or prepare quick pasta sauces that are then cooked together with the not-quite-done pasta at the end, you could get her a disk-bottom design sauté pan. One advantage of the sauté pan design, is that she won't have to lift and flip the pan to move the ingredients around -- the reason the pan has straight sides is to that the cook can simply shake it back and forth on the stove to bounce the ingredients off the sides and back into the pan. This would allow her to have the thermal benefits of a heavier pan, but without worrying about arm strength.

Steven is right: For a home oven and a typical home oven pizza stone, you need a very thin crust and sparse toppings if you want to have a great crust. Needless to say, you should put the stone on the floor of your oven so the gas jets fire more or less directly into the stone, set the oven at its highest temperature and preheat at least an hour. If you can stack two pizza stones on top of each other, all the better. As for pre-baking, it's nowhere written that you have to put everything on the raw dough and bake it together all in one go. It's quite typical in Italy for certain ingredients to be added later on in the (short) baking process, and many ingredients (prosciutto and basil or any other fresh herbs beint the most obvious examples) aren't added to the pizza until it is finished baking and comes out of the oven. So, looking at the OP's situation, there would have been nothing wrong with smearing the pizza with tomato sauce and baking it just like that for a while, then adding (hopefully thinner/smaller) pieces of mozzarella when only one minute of baking time remained, and then putting the basil on after the pizza comes out of the oven (a light drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil wouldn't hurt at the end either).

What do you think would happen if you asked, "is there any way you could just put a bunch of each kind into a bowl and leave it on the table for us?"

I wonder if fine dining restaurants, which seem to be the ones that have the "bread sommelier" come by and dole out single pieces of bread from basket of bread selections, are trying to discourage diners from filling up on bread. I mean, I'm 100% in Steven's camp that it's an anoying practice. I just wonder if that may be part of the logic.

I'd say he was making a point about more hearth- or floor-of-the-oven-baked "artisinanal-style" pizza hopefully from a retained heat oven as opposed to largely pan-baked "Domino's-style"* pizza in a stainless steel deck oven. * No, I am not comparing the best of this kind of pizza in Providence or elsewhere to the quality or industralization of Domino's pizza. This is about a style of pizza, and I am only using the name "Domino's" to put a name to that style.

Look, I never disagreed that if you were to take a sample of every single heirloom tomato available for sale at retail or in restaurants today and compared that sample to a similar sample from 1997 there wouldn't be an observable drop in quality. In that, we have always been in agreement. We have mainly been in disagreement as to a) which factors are responsible for this phenomenon; and b) whether there is a meaningful decline in the quality of tomatoes available at the Union Square Greenmarket. I think the decline in average, across-the-board heirloom tomato quality is attributable to the popularity commercialization of heirloom tomatoes that resulted in the same, or similar techniques being used to bring heirloom tomatoes into supermarkets that are used for commercial hybrids. I also think that the quality (as well as variability due to weather, etc.) of heirloom tomatoes at the USGM is much the same as it has been in the past. In addition, I never thought of "heirloom tomato" as a stong indicator of quality so much as I thought of it as a certain kind of tomato that, in the past, was only brought to market in NYC by the best local growers and now is being brought to an exponentially larger market by a wider variety of growers. This is something I've seen happen with any number of products. Ten years ago, the only game in town for guanciale was Salumeria Biellese's "pure funk" product. I guess you might say, "guanciale was a designation of quality" at that time. Now one can buy guanciale in NYC from any number of producers, and "the overall quality has gone down." But I never thought of "guanciale" as anything other than the name of the product I was buying, like "cucumber" or "baguette" or "steak." If there was any association of quality for me, it would be in saying "guanciale from Salumeria Biellese." I feel much the same way about heirloom tomatoes. Now, if my favorite guys at the USGM started selling crap heirloom tomatoes, then I'd be ringing the alarm bell. Thus far, it hasn't happened. Really, I'm not even sure it's a "regrettable state of affairs." What's so regrettable about it? If anything, it's the case that there are more outstanding heirloom tomatoes available today than there were ten years ago. My USGM guys are certainly growing a lot more of them, and instead of growing 3-4 cultivars they're growing as many as a dozen different cultivars. Okay, you can find crap heirloom tomatoes at the same places you find crap commercial hybrid tomatoes. So what? There's no way they were going to turn out this many heirloom tomatoes with an average level of quality even approaching what the best greenmarket people are selling. It's simply not possible on that scale. What does that mean? That things were better back when they were growing 1/50th as many heirloom tomatoes as today, and the only people who could get them were the likes of Jean-Georges Vongerichten and whomever showed up to stand on line at Union Square early enough on Saturday mornings to get a few before the growers ran out for the day?

I've never seen it done so that the pizza retains a shape anywhere near the circularity that's achieved with a pizza pan. Then again, anything made with such a hard dough that it can be thrown in the air and spun into a fourteen-inch circle that won't deform upon being shaken off the peel onto the oven floor isn't likely to result in what I'd call outstanding pizza.

As others have pointed out, one of the things about heirloom tomatoes is that some of the varieties aren't to everyone's liking, even if they are good examples of that particular cultivar. I, for example, have never liked Green Zebra (which is technically not an "heirloom" since it dates to 1983). And other cultivars I have found to be either too sweet or insufficiently acidic for my taste. These are the kinds of tomatoes that I might like to have together with several different cultivars in a mixed heirloom tomato salad, but wouldn't care to eat on their own. All of which is to say that, for sandwiches and just plain eating, I stick with the cultivars that I have found to have an intensely "tomatoey" taste -- which is not true of all cultivars. I wonder if you might have bought some cultivars that didn't appeal to you. We are in agreement on this, the fundamental point here. But it was, as you just noted, a virtual guarantee of quality -- a designation you could indeed rely on. And now it isn't. No, it wasn't a designation. It was a way of describing a certain kind of tomato. "Heirloom tomato" was no more a designation of quality than the words "apple pie" or "chicken fried steak." For example, for the first 30 years of my life "chicken fried steak" was synonymous with "delicious" because the only chicken fried steak I ever tasted was prepared by my grandmother, who had been cooking it for something like 80 years. Since she passed away, I have had chicken fried steak prepared by a variety of home and professional cooks and, well, while I have had some outstanding examples, the overall quality doesn't measure up on average. Does this mean that "chicken fried steak has been dumbed down" or is it the case that there was always wide variability in the quality of chicken fried steak, and that that variability had been previously unrecognied by me? I would argue that it was the latter, and I would argue that the something similar has happened for you with heirloom tomatoes. I would also argue that heirloom tomatoes are no different from other tomatoes in being highly suceptible to weather and other growing conditions and practices, harvest time, post-harvest handling and similar variables. My mother has grown tomatoes every season for longer than I've been alive, so this is something I have always known about tomatoes. I wouldn't know, having never purchased an heirloom tomato at either place. I'm not sure I've even seen an heirloom claim at Stew Leonard's, and I don't really shop at Whole Foods -- I just go in to look around when I'm near Time Warner. I have, however, purchased mediocre heirloom tomatoes at the Union Square Greenmarket twice this summer. I've also purchased good ones. (As well as good and bad ones at Fairway, Eli's, Vinegar Factory, and a few other places -- the point being that sometimes they're good and sometimes they're bad). As I noted in the posts you referenced, I specifically make a point of shopping at the Greenmarket during apple and tomato seasons (your math seems to assume I go once per season?). And I've been doing this over a period of years. Are you buying heirloom tomatoes from a variety of vendors, and have you been doing so over time? If so, I'm really surprised you've not noticed the same trend I have. Steven, I've been buying heirloom tomatoes at the Union Square Greenmarket to the tune of a 5 to 12 times a summer since I first noticed them for sale over ten years ago. So, with all due respect, I think my sample is a little better than "twice a summer." I also don't agree that "twice this summer" is a sufficient sample to support your assertion that the quality of greenmarket heirloom tomatoes is in radical decline. For example, when did you buy these tomatoes? More than 1/3 of the days in August 2007 had rain in the Northeast. These are not conditions that are likely to lead to outstanding tomatoes. What cultivars did you buy, and were they cultivars that you have enjoyed before? It is an obvious claim on it's face, but I think it is also a misleading one and I disagree in several ways. If it was true that, several years ago, you could simply tell someone to go to the Union Square Greenmarket and get some heirloom tomatoes, this is true only because heirloom tomatoes were being brought to the Union Square Greenmarket by one or two growers at that time. So, by directing someone to the USGM for heirloom tomatoes you were, in effect, directing them to specific stands. Those same growers are still producing outstanding heirloom tomatoes, and have been joined by a number of other growers who have started to produce heirloom tomatoes. They come from various areas around NYC with different microclimates and growing tehniques. They can all produce outstanding heirloom tomatoes when the conditions are right, but from time to time they may also produce less-than-optimal heirloom tomatoes depending on things like rain, sunlight and temperature. It is also true that, back in the day, the few original grower-sellers of heirloom tomatoes at the USGM could have some less-than-peak tomatoes, depending on the same variables. Finally, also the case that not all the growers who expermiented with heirloom tomatoes have stuck with it over the years, because they weren't getting the results they wanted. So, in reality, not all that much has changed at the USGM with respect to heirloom tomatoes: It was always possible to get less-than-optimal heirloom tomatoes, the best heirloom tomato growers are still there, and more than anything else, it's a farmer's market: If you want to get the best of something, you have to talk to the growers and ask them things such as "what's good right now?" and "there's been a lot of rain lately, how is that affecting the heirloom tomatoes?" Most of the time, if they're selling you a sub-optimal tomato, they'll be up-front about it: "The rain's made them a little watery and the flavor isn't as concentrated as it can be. It's supposed to try out later in the month, and we think we'll get some amazing flavor in about another week. But these are probably as good as it gets right now" or "We started these out early in the hoophouse so we could bring them to market earlier in the season. It's still really early for heirloom tomatoes, and they're going to be a lot better in a month. These are pretty good for right now, though." You can't expect to walk up to a random table at a farmer's market, pick up some tomatoes and end up with something amazing 100% of the time. This wasn't true in 1997 and it isn't true today. I'm sure Mitch and I could be pursuaded to meet you at 9:00 at the USGM on Saturday for a tomato-buying expedition. As it so happens, I've brought the fixings for an heirloom tomato sandwich to have at lunch today -- the tomato slices in their own container so they don't spend the morning soaking into the bread. Delicious. I should qualify that statement with two caveats: 1. "Delicious" in comparison to what else was available. and 2. I can't discount the extent to which the novelty of the flavors and textures of heirloom tomatoes may have influenced perceptions as to quality when they were first introduced in NYC greenmarkets.

I think what he was saying was: don't trust a pizza that is baked in a pan. This is something I can agree with. I don't think it's possible to get a truly first-rate pizza that is baked in a pan. Truly first rate pizza, even the style that is baked in a steel deck oven, needs to be baked on the floor of the oven. This will never result in a uniformly round pizza. I think what you will find is that round pizza that is not baked in a pan is actually "round-ish" and not really round.

Like Mitch, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. All I can suggest is that perhaps you simply aren't getting to the Union Square Greenmarket frequently enough (your posts elsewhere suggest that it's somewhere in the range of zero to three visits a year on average). There simply has not been "dramatic overall drop in heirloom-tomato quality" at the greenmarket. That's so clearly incorrect that I'm going to say it's a matter of fact rather than opinion. If it were "dramatic" and "overall" one of us would have noticed it. Now, is it possible that on one infrequent visit you went on the wrong day and bought from the wrong vendor, who was selling the watery, less-flavorful fruit that people upthread have indicated results from certain weather conditions? And that this meant you got heirloom tomatoes that didn't live up to the expectations of your memory? That seems rather more likely to me. Greenmarket heirloom tomatoes, just like any highly weather- microclimate- growing- and handling-dependent produce (and I would argue that tomatoes are among the most sensitive in this regard) are sometimes going to be less than perfect. That's the nature of the beast. If people say it happens in their home gardens, there's no way it can be avoided in a commercial operation. This is no less true now than it was in 1997, unless it is the case that we had a string of summers with uniformly optimal tomato weather throughout (which I find unlikely). It's not like the tomato growers are going to, or were ever going to throw away all their ripe heirloom tomatoes just because a week of heavy rains had made them less than perfect. Remember, we had a ton of rain a while back. This weather, according to my guys at the USGM, definitely had a short-term negative impact on heirloom tomato quality. Now, on the other hand, the weather's been perfect for him and his tomatoes are back to peak quality. The point I think many of us are making is that the product that was good "back in the day" is still just as outstanding as it always was. The fact that you're the only person arguing the counterpoint, and that you have historically declared yourself not-a-greenmarket-shopper, strikes me as an indication that you don't have a good basis for asserting that the great growers of 1997 are now turning out mediocrity. Now, I have agreed that ten years ago the words "heirloom tomato" were almost always associated with high quality and that they are not so today (primarily because of new entrants to the heirloom tomato growing, handling and selling chain). But I never thought that "heirloom tomato" was a designation of quality. It's not like buying a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano, which must be produced in a certain way and passed by the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano. That is a designation of minimum quality. I've always known that tomato quality is highly dependent on the way they are grown and handled, so it's no surprise to me that the heirloom tomatoes at Whole Foods and Stew Leonard's are not so great -- none of the tomatoes these places have ever sold have been up to the level of a picked-yesterday, peak-season, good-weather greenmarket tomato (heirloom or hybrid). I think that's the point that Dave, Mitch and I are arguing.

If I may reiterate my point... Ten years ago, only a few people were growing heirloom tomatoes. These were the best growers in the area. I can remember that you had to show up early at the Union Square Greenmarket, or they would have sold out of heirloom tomatoes. Yes, you could still buy amazing "regular" tomatoes from these guys, but the heirloom tomatoes seemed to have a more intense "tomatoey" flavor, and depending on the cultivar had an interestingly different-than-usual tomatoey flavor. Everyone in the area was getting heirloom tomatoes from these few growers. If Steven had an heirloom tomato in 1997, there were two choices: buy it from one or two growers at a greenmarket, of eat it at a handful of Manhattan restaurants like Blue Hill (which I don't think was open then, but I'm using it as an archetype). Those few restaurants, meanwhile, were buying their heirloom tomatoes from the same growers who were selling at the greenmarkets. Now, ten years later, you can get heirloom tomatoes at A&P, Stew Leonard's, Fairway and Whole Foods, not to mention that there are more than eight growers selling them at the Union Square Greenmarket. And instead of a half-dozen high-end Manhattan restaurants like Blue Hill using heirloom tomatoes, hundreds of NYC-area restaurants like Josefina are using them. As a result, for all the reasons that have been outlined above, the average quality of all heirloom tomatoes one is likely to encounter has declined. In making this observation, Steven is absolutely correct. However, Dave is also correct in observing that tomatoes are highly dependent on the grower (i.e., how/where they are grown, when they are picked, how they are handled, etc.), which comes down to where you buy your tomatoes. In support of that point, Mitch and I are similarly correct in observing that the same guys (plus a few more) who were selling the amazing heirloom tomatoes in 1997 are still selling amazing heirloom tomatoes today. Supporting all of these observations, I have personally bought heirloom tomatoes this summer from Whole Foods and my guys at the Union Square Greenmarket. The contrast was huge, with the former being mediocre (if actually not bad for a supermarket tomato) and the latter being amazing. These two sets of observations are not mutually incompatible unless it is the case that Steven is buying his heirloom tomatoes from the same people from whom Mitch and I are buying our heirloom tomatoes. The evidence suggests that, Steven's claimed trips to the Greenmarket to buy mediocre heirloom tomatoes notwithstanding, this is not the case. Now, as to Steven's larger point about the "dumbing down of heirloom tomatoes" -- I'm not sure, exactly, what that means. When I think of "dumbing down" I think of a deliberate and purposeful reduction in sophistication, complexity and refinement in order to appeal to a broader, more popular demographic that would have difficulty in appreciating the real thing. I don't think that has happened here. Rather, it's simply the case that there has been an explosion in the production and availability of heirloom tomatoes over the last ten years. The inevitable result of this explosion has been that many growers have applied the same techniques and methods in producing heirloom tomatoes and bringing them to market that make regular supermarket tomatoes so crappy. That said, it strikes me that there are, in fact, more outstanding, mindblowingly delicious heirloom tomatoes to be had today than there were in 1997. The same few guys who were growing them back then are now growing many more of them (as well as growing more cultivars) and several other high-quality growers have jumped on the bandwagon. But, of course, the increase in availability of high-quality heirloom tomatoes is dwarfed by the increase in availability of mediocre-quality heirloom tomatoes in supermarkets and gourmet stores, which has gone from zero in 1997 to "the way most people get heirloom tomatoes" in 2007. Does this mean that heirloom tomatoes have been "dumbed down"? I don't think so. Rather, it means that the popularity and availability of heirloom tomatoes have grown greatly over the last ten years, but nevertheless the same criteria which apply to all highly grower-dependent produce continue to apply to heirloom tomatoes. I suppose it is the case that heirloom tomatoes, taken as a whole, have seen a dramatic drop in quality over the last ten years. But the things I understood about tomatoes in 1997 are still true today. You just can't get an outstanding tomato at a grocery store or gourmet market.