Apologies all around to my Scottish friends*, but I have had your Scottish Breakfast, and let’s just say, I was not amused. Don’t get me wrong. I love that you serve up the tea, piping hot and plentiful, and without being asked. You can hold the black pudding though, if you don’t mind. And haggis? Need I say more? As for the eggs, beans, toast, and tomatoes, I love all of these things, just not combined, and certainly not combined upon my breakfast plate.
Perhaps this prejudice is why I had hesitation about the Kellogg’s Breakfast Tomato. It conjured up memories of runny eggs and seeping ponds of beans that I would just as soon forget. Seriously, I love tomatoes, but for breakfast??? No thanks.
I bought the seeds, however, from Annies Heirloom Seeds, and grew the plant anyway. (Note: I have since discovered another wonderful heirloom seed resource called Seed Savers Exchange.) It was to be my orange tomato for the 2012 year. I had grown other orange tomatoes in the past, and with the exception of the cherries, I had been disappointed. I mostly grew them for my husband who regularly vocalizes his disdain for tomatoes, blaming it on the acid. Sometimes the yellow and orange tomatoes are a little more basic. I thought I could woo him over.
As it turned out, these tomatoes didn’t ripen until after my tomato season was in full-bore. As the only real tomato eater in the household, this meant tomatoes up the whazoo. I had Brandywines, Bloody Butchers, Black Cherries, Yellow Pears, Black Krim, Caspian Pink, Stupice, and Blush to name a few. I was eating tomatoes with such abandon and greed that sometimes I would cut out a thick center slice, put it on a slice of toast with some cheddar cheese, and discard the “ends” to the chickens (who will take any tomato that they can get). There was not a dearth of tomatoes when the Kellogg’s Breakfast finally donned its luscious orange fruit. There was a surplus.
The first ripened Kellogg’s Breakfast wasn’t really a pretty tomato. It had grown so fat it burst its seams. I suspected a mealiness, the kind you get in a December grown tomato that has been shipped from the far reaches of the Earth (not that I would eat such a thing willingly). It was, however, orange. Its orange far surpassed that glass of orange juice that the catalogue made reference to. It was more like the color of the orange itself, the kind of orange that is dyed to be even more brilliant. (More on orange dye.) I didn’t have the highest hopes that its flavor would match the intensity of its color.
Then I tasted the tomato, and Heaven-Help-Me, this is the best tasting tomato I have had in a long time. They describe it as having a “tangy, strong-tomato flavor” and I agree completely. I would have this tomato on toast, on a box, and with a fox. I even (gasp) had it for breakfast. Yes, in fact, I will admit to the Scots that I have grown to LOVE tomato and egg sandwiches (save the beans). I won’t be having haggis anytime soon, but still, I will make this minor concession.
I still loathe the name. I know that it was discovered by a botanist named Kellogg, but the name conjures up images of artificially-colored commercial cereals and their mascots, like Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam. I like to think that my heirlooms rise to a different level on the ethical echelon of food choices. I like to think like there is something pure, clean, and elegant about my garden plants that surpasses the advertisements, big-box stores, and other “evils” of the conventional food market. I guess I will have to get over that. After all, a name is just a name.
This year, in fact, I am growing such oddly-named tomatoes as Thessaloniki, Northern Lights, Pineapple Hawaiian, and the Mortgage Lifter. The last of which, gets its name from a guy named Radiator Charlie, who evidently paid off his mortgage with the sales from his tomato seedlings. Imagine that.
Do you want some of these? If you are in southern Vermont, come and get them. I am selling heirlooms this year to fund my free workshops. Here is the link.
A great thanks goes out to Julie Slezak of Annie's Heirloom Seeds who permitted me to use this photograph. They sell seeds, including the Kellogg's Breakfast tomato!
* Dear Scots, if it makes you feel better, I am an equal opportunity offender. See this link where I probably insulted the French or at least their language.
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