Thursday, 4:30 PM
How do you like them tomatoes?
(David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
The judges squeezed, sliced, and slurped. They touched and tasted, pinched and prodded, weighed and waxed poetic about the brilliant red hues at the 23d Massachusetts Tomato Festival and Contest today at City Hall Plaza.
It was a hard day for the food writers, chefs, cookbook authors, grocers, and state officials who did the judging. According to contest guidelines, the perfect tomato should have a strong taste, be slightly acidic, juicy, and fresh with a tender skin. It should have a dense, uniform, thick wall bursting with a jelly-like mass of seeds.
Winning tomatoes should be firm enough so as not to bruise when dropped, but still must be ripe and ready to be eaten like an apple. Color should be uniform and not blotchy, and shape must be perfectly symmetrical.
"The farmers and agricultural products here today represent some of the very best of what our Commonwealth has to offer," Ian Bowles, the state Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said in a statement.
The heaviest category was simple: A scale acted as arbitrary judge and handed top prize to Brox Farm of Dracut, which grew a 2.6 pound behemoth. The other three classes required a discerning pallet and tough choices.
The heaviest-tomato category was simple: A scale acted as arbitrary judge and handed top prize to Brox Farm of Dracut, which grew a 2.6-pound behemoth. The other three classes required a discerning palate and tough choices.
Ward's Berry Farm of Sharon took top honors in the slicing competition. The cherry category was captured by Kimball Fruit of Pepperell. And Verrill Farm of Concord won top honors for its heirloom tomato.
(David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)
Sam Poindexter, 6, squeezed a tomato like a baseball today as he helped judge the competition with his grandmother Elynor Walcott.
