UglyRipe Tomato Approval Invites Beauty Back

Big news for tomato lovers (and that would be, um, just about everyone) The Florida Tomato Committee has approved the sale of UglyRipe tomatoes outside of the state of Florida. I had no idea this battle was even going on, but I had noticed the presence of these beautiful, heirloom-like tomatoes at my local grocery store this winter (how they got here, in Georgia, before this approval, I'm not exactly sure). I noticed them because I was annoyed they were called UglyRipe. I have gotten so used to heirloom tomatoes that they don't look ugly to me anymore (I remember when they did, just a few years ago) and I thought, "Now, isn't it time to move beyond that name?"

Anyway, I did some sleuthing around this morning and discovered that the UglyRipes are bred from the Marmonde heirloom tomato, crossed twice to increase strength and disease resistance.

The Florida Tomato Committee apparently does not let Florida tomatoes leave the state during "the season" (October 10-June 15) unless they are uniformly round and red. The UglyRipe will never be uniformly round and red, and isn't intended to be. The Santa Sweets company, which is the only grower of the UglyRipe, claims its tomatoes are bred for taste, not appearance, and that that's what consumers want.

And guess what? After literally years of battle, they won. Or should I say, we won. With one company finally able to put a stake in the ground (and not a beefsteak) for taste and heirloom quality, we have flung open the doors to revival of a rich heritage that is all but lost in commercial grocery stores. And we have invited beauty back into our culinary lives.

Okay, so Plant City, Florida is not exactly local in the true definition of my foodshed, but it's only 480 miles away. And a seven-or-so-hours-drive to bring delicious tomatoes in January to my local market works for me. What's more, Santa Sweets has one of the largest organic tomato programs in the country.

To find out more about UglyRipe tomatoes, go to www.santasweets.com. To order your own heirloom tomato seeds, or to just marvel at the diversity of seeds available, go to www.seedsofchange.com and www.seedsavers.org.

UPDATE: 2/1/07: Verlyn Klinkenborg (one of my very favorite writers!) wrote about Santa Sweets', the growers of UglyRipe tomatoes, reliance on methyl bromide for soil fumigation. (This is not used in the organic version of UglyRipes.) According to the EPA website:

Methyl bromide (MeBr) is an odorless, colorless gas that has been used as an agricultural soil and structural fumigant to control a wide variety of pests. However, because MeBr depletes the stratospheric ozone layer and is classified as a Class I ozone-depleting substance, the amount of MeBr produced and imported in the U.S. was incrementally reduced until the phaseout took effect on January 1, 2005, except for allowable exemptions. These exemptions include the Quarantine and Preshipment (QPS) exemption, to eliminate quarantine pests, and the Critical Use Exemption (CUE), designed for agricultural users with no technically or economically feasible alternatives.

Now, as we know, there are alternatives to methyl bromide--organic tomatoes, for one, and eating truly in-season only, for another. Decide for yourself--is a non-organic tomato a fair example of a critical use exception for this powerful, ozone-depleting pesticide?

To find out more about methyl bromide, go to www.epa.gov/ozone/mbr/

To find out more about Verlyn Klinkenborg, go to www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/klinkenborg-bio.html

UglyRipe Tomato Approval Invites Beauty Back