# Where do the best tasting tomatoes grow?



## TravelLover (Apr 12, 2013)

I've had some AMAZING tasting tomatoes grown by farmers in New Jersey and Oregon--sweet, flavorful, INCREDIBLE tasting! I'm hoping to be blessed with similarly amazing tomatoes once we arrive in Mexico. :fingerscrossed: Where do the best tasting tomatoes grow?


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

There are huge commercial agricultural operations in Mexico which supply supermarkets with produce. Aside from them, in the small town mercados ... the produce will come from a local grower or be shipped in from a larger commercial center. The "best" are home-grown. Don't expect much more than that, IMO.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

You'll find way more Roma tomatoes than the large Beefsteaks popular up north. Roma never as sweet and mostly used for cooking. Large stores will have Beefsteaks at times but think they are grown mostly for export


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

In 13 years in Mexico, whether in Jalisco or Chiapas, I have never met even one tomato that is even remotely as sweet and delicious as seasonal vine-ripened, heirloom tomatoes in my home state of Alabama in mid-summer or my adopted state of California in about September. The tomatoes here in Mexico are mostly relatively tastlesss romas grown for cooking and the bolas they sell here are almost always disappointing and never up to the heirloooms grown to sweet ripeness and sold in season in the United States or France and sold in markets immediately upon having been harvested fully ripened. 

When we first moved here in 2001 and acquired a large garden next to our new home, I tried to start a new tomato patch but the tomatoes that survived, and many died before ripenng year after year, were relatively tasteless. I can´t explain this as I had great success in growing tomatoes in both Alabama and California but I suggest you not waste your time at Lake Chapala and the Chiapas Highlands are out of the question because it´s t high and cool. 

As for commercially grown tomatoes, in the Sayula area near Lake Chapala, there is an immense tomato crop harvested annually but all of the best tomatoes are shipped immediately to the United States overnight after harvesting. Back at the turn of the century when he U.S., for a time, started boycotting Mexican tomatoes because of unpleasantnesss of Bush´s Iraq war, we got some really nice tomatoes from local vast commercial tomato growing operations who could no longer sell on the U.S. market but no more.

Don´t come down here for the tomatoes. There are lots of other reasons to move here.


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## TravelLover (Apr 12, 2013)

Hound Dog said:


> In 13 years in Mexico, whether in Jalisco or Chiapas, I have never met even one tomato that is even remotely as sweet and delicious as seasonal vine-ripened, heirloom tomatoes in my home state of Alabama in mid-summer or my adopted state of California in about September. The tomatoes here in Mexico are mostly relatively tastlesss romas grown for cooking and the bolas they sell here are almost always disappointing and never up to the heirloooms grown to sweet ripeness and sold in season in the United States or France and sold in markets immediately upon having been harvested fully ripened.
> 
> When we fisr moved here in 2001 and acquired a large garden next to our new home, I tried to start a new tomato patch but the tomatoes that survived, and many died before ripenng year after year, were relatively tasteless. I can´t explain this as I had great success in growing tomatoes in both Alabama and California but I suggest you not waste your time at Lake Chapala and the Chiapas Highlands are out of the question.
> 
> ...


Thank you SO MUCH for sharing, Hound Dog. I was concerned that the tomatoes in Mexico would be similar to the ones we ate in Costa Rica and Panama. You confirmed my suspicion!

We still want to come to Mexico but will have to spend a few months out of the year in Oregon (during tomato season, of course). We have family in Oregon so it works out well.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

It could be that they ripen too fast and therefore do not get a whole lot of flavor. It is true for the grapes, the best grapes that produce the most interesting wines are the grapes that mature slowly. Grapes that mature fast get a lot of sugar fast and produce wines with high alcohol but never great wines, maybe the same for tomatoes. I find it interesting that we do not seem to be able to get great tomatoes in the country they come from.


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

Do you know if there are any small growers or local farmers who raise some of the heirloom varieties? I had almost forgotten how delicious tomatoes can be until the heirlooms started showing up at farmers' markets here. Tomatoes are one of the things we're looking forward to growing in our garden when we finally make the move to Morelos. I hope we have luck with that!


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Yes we have heirlooms at a farmer market here in Ajijic and they are nothing like what you can get in the US or Europe.

I have brought back all kinds of seeds from Europe as my cousin as a vivero and gets all types of seeds, nothing taste like it should. I would concentrate on something else if I were you.
We had a neighbor who was a farmer from Texas same deal.
By the way cherry tomatoes taste quite good so go figure..


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

citlali said:


> Yes we have heirlooms at a farmer market here in Ajijic and they are nothing like what you can get in the US or Europe.
> 
> I have brought back all kinds of seeds from Europe as my cousin as a vivero and gets all types of seeds, nothing taste like it should. I would concentrate on something else if I were you.
> We had a neighbor who was a farmer from Texas same deal.
> By the way cherry tomatoes taste quite good so go figure..


I agree with Citlali's advice: concentrate on something else. Trying to replicate your favorites from one country in another country can be a fool's errand. It might be better to focus on learning about the wonderful attributes of the new country, rather than spending your time trying to reproduce things one liked in another place.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

I brought down some Cherry tomato seeds and the plant grew to 12 feet. Had to treat like a vine. Had delicious little ones for almost 3 months


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

I wonder if one reason for the lack of really scrumptious tomatoes in Mexico is that most Mexicans use them for cooking rather than for making salads.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

We have found that the best "cherry tomatoes" we get in Mexico are the tiny, incredibly sweet cherry tomatoes grown in the Chiapas Highlands on small milpas in the mountains at 9,000 feet and above. The indigenous growers raise them in their milpas and bring them down to the indigenous market in San Cristóbal for sale when ripe but we have never seen anything like these little jewels in Jalisco. I think that tomatoes, like so much fruit from temperate climates, need periodic bracing cold weather to develop their flavor as is true of such other fruits as apples and pears or root vegetables such as turnips or rutabagas. The root vegetables and stone fruits we get in the Chiapas Highlands grown at high altitudes are always much more flavorful than those we get at Lake Chapala grown in the range of 5,000 feet with milder temperatures.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Sweet?? The little tomatoes?? I do not think so, they are very acidic and not on my shoppung list , that is for sure. I was talking about regular cherry tomatoes not the tiny things used for salsa.


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## JoanneR2 (Apr 18, 2012)

Isla Verde said:


> I wonder if one reason for the lack of really scrumptious tomatoes in Mexico is that most Mexicans use them for cooking rather than for making salads.


One of the things I have been most disappointed with here have been the tomatoes. I understand better now but it doesn't help much.


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## dichosalocura (Oct 31, 2013)

Yes, I've also been trying to grow tomatoes here, in Chapala, but have had very disappointing results. But, to be fair, many things grow wonderfully in Chapala. Like others have already suggested, if coming to Mexico is in your future, focus on what Mexico has or does that is good, not what it lacks. BTW, in my yard, we have, pomegranates, Jamaican red bananas, mandarines, lemons, papaya, guanabana, chico sapote, black sapote (also known as chocolate pudding tree), lychee and passion fruit. Next I want to try a Japanese Persimmons tree and just saw the really cool and exotic Mangosteen tree for sale on mercado libre. Cool things can definately grow here and like weeds at Lake Chapala, just not necessarily all the American stuff.


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## Anonimo (Apr 8, 2012)

The best tomatoes I've had in Mexico have been some tomates criollos I bought in a street market (Calle Tamarindo, between Los Cocos and Los Mangos, in Zihuatanejo).










Also some "tomates ******" were briefly available last year at a produce market in Pátzcuaro, but then, no more.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

Anonimo:

Those photos look great and I trust your judgement on food from your many previous posts on several forums. During the summer.we have started getting, on occasion, some pretty tasty vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes at West Ajijic´s "organic" Tuesday market although those tomatoes don´t even approach the tomatoes sold at roadside stands in the summer in my home state of Alabama but that is not even remotely a sufficient reason for me to return to the states. 

One problem with buying the tomatoes at the West Ajijic "organic" market is that there is a mad rush to grab them wher the market opens at 10:00AM and that´s not fun for me. 

In Ajijic, Pancho at Superlake imports heirloom tomatoes from the U.S. at certain times of the year but, as I´m sure you know, they don´t travel well and are not only quite expensive but normally become a bit mushy and flavorless by they time they get here. We have a bit of better luck with locally grown tomatoes in the Chiapas Highlands during the season but that´s hit and miss as well.

Maybe we will have to re-visit Zihuatanejo and look for tomatoes there.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Interesting about black tomatoes, I also planted some from Crimea(?)I though they may do better because they are designed to mature in a short time but their taste was more than disappointing..maybe I planted them at the wrong time.
I have a tomatoe plant that seeded itself this year and have large unripe tomatoes right now, I cannot wait until they turn red to see how they taste. They are taking their sweet time to ripen so that maybe the trick tomatoes in December or January..we will see.

Tomatoes are from Mexico so it should not be so hard finding some great ones here...


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

I wonder if Mexicans eat raw tomatoes as much as Americans and Canadians and Europeans do.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

_


Isla Verde said:



I wonder if Mexicans eat raw tomatoes as much as Americans and Canadians and Europeans do.

Click to expand...

_I think not, Isla and, perhaps the same goes for many other raw vegetables except as served as ingredients, among others, in various salsa concoctions. 

It´s amazing the variations on cooking with different ingredients from region to region around the world. We find wonderful, fat and juicy ginger root in the Chiapas Hgihlands at the indigenous market near our home there in San Cristóbal and buy it all the time but they do not (generally speaking) cook with ginger root there where it is used only medicinally in teas for curing various ailments. 

I had my first horsemeat roast at the home of my bride´s parents in Paris sometime back in about 1973 as part of a Sunday luncheon feast and it was lean and delicious. When I dined with East Indian new friends in Mumbai (then Bombay) back in the 60s, they were literally repulsed that I would even consider consuming cow meat. 

When my darlin´wife and I were visiting one of our favorite places; Teotitlan Del Valle, Oaxaca, a Zapoteco village just outside of Oaxaca City, a few years ago, the village youngsters tried as youngsters do, to tease me and offer me fried grasshoppers, a famous local treat. Well, I have memories of the giant and, to me, repulsive, grasshoppers of South Alabama from the 1950s and did not succumb to their entreaties but my wife, who is French and will, thus, eat anything, responded to those kids; "OK, fine, we´ll eat grasshoppers if, when you come to France, you´ll eat snails, a local delicacy there.", to which the young Zapotecos responded, "Snails? You eat snails? That´s disgusting. We´d die if we ever went to France,_EVER_. Ugh!¨" 

To each his own but damn was that horse roast in Paris at the family dining table delicious. A hell of a lot better than that tough-*ssed cow roast my parents used to serve up in the 50s as post, incredibly boring ,church service feasts following endless sermons delivered by Presbyterian Ministers, the very definition of which would immediatley put even Jesus himself to sleep. No wonder there was this massive emigration from Scotland for which I thank God since it happened before my time.


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

Sometimes, you may not want to know where the best tomatoes, oysters or other such things are harvested. I once knew of a housing development in suburbia surrounding a low-lying field, where the neighbors discovered beautiful tomatoes growing. The collected them, when ripe and thoroughly enjoyed them, bragging that they were much more delicious than any they could buy at the local supermarkets.
That low-lying field was the drainage field for the community sewage treatment plant and the tomatoes were volunteers; the seeds surviving the treatment process and erupting at every failure of the drainage system. Oysters? They like those unmentioned sewage outlets that many cities pipe into the sea. Fishermen are prohibited from such areas, but they do know where the money is, and that enforcement is lax and inspection rare.
Isn*t life grand?


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

RVGRINGO said:


> Sometimes, you may not want to know where the best tomatoes, oysters or other such things are harvested. I once knew of a housing development in suburbia surrounding a low-lying field, where the neighbors discovered beautiful tomatoes growing. The collected them, when ripe and thoroughly enjoyed them, bragging that they were much more delicious than any they could buy at the local supermarkets.
> That low-lying field was the drainage field for the community sewage treatment plant and the tomatoes were volunteers; the seeds surviving the treatment process and erupting at every failure of the drainage system. Oysters? They like those unmentioned sewage outlets that many cities pipe into the sea. Fishermen are prohibited from such areas, but they do know where the money is, and that enforcement is lax and inspection rare.
> Isn*t life grand?


As long as you don't get sick from eating tainted tomatoes and oysters  !


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

[_QUOTE=RVGRINGO;2535705]Sometimes, you may not want to know where the best tomatoes, oysters or other such things are harvested. I once knew of a housing development in suburbia surrounding a low-lying field, where the neighbors discovered beautiful tomatoes growing. The collected them, when ripe and thoroughly enjoyed them, bragging that they were much more delicious than any they could buy at the local supermarkets.
That low-lying field was the drainage field for the community sewage treatment plant and the tomatoes were volunteers; the seeds surviving the treatment process and erupting at every failure of the drainage system. Oysters? They like those unmentioned sewage outlets that many cities pipe into the sea. Fishermen are prohibited from such areas, but they do know where the money is, and that enforcement is lax and inspection rare.
Isn*t life grand?[/QUOTE]_


A good story, RV. When my darlin´ wife was a young girl spending her summers in the then somewhat primitive villages of Gujan- Meastras on Arcachon Bay on the Atlantic Coast of France, her grandfather gained family fame for his art at bringing home the fattest and most succelent and flavorful shrimp for family feasts that anyone had ever seen. Flavorful, fat, succulent shrimp that graced the familiy dinner table every Sunday throughout the summer. Remember that this was the 1950s when sewage pipes fed untreated sewage into the bay and the shrimp, known in Mexico as the "Cucarachas de mar" loved that stuff - especially untreated and akin to foie gras as far as they were concerned. And at the points where the sewage pipes dumped their untreated effluent into the bay was exactly where granpa was fishing. It´s best not to think too seriously about these things.

A damn fine feast for us humans and,as for oysters you are taiking to a Mobile Bay boy - I know what they like to eat.


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

Anybody been swimming at Waikiki Beach? The big sewage pipe for Honolulu emptied just off the beach and we sailed right over it back in the late 1970s. I doubt they have moved it.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Actually I worked on an oyster farm and oysters have the bad habit of dying in poluted waters , on the other hand mussels and shrimp love sewage where they grow big and fat. 
As kids we followed my grand father to find out his secret fishing place for the beautiful shrimp he would bring back and sure enough the outh of the sewage was it! Never got sick from the shrimp..I should be immune to all kinds of things but unfortunately it is not so.


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