Black Prince Tomatoes
By Kira Hamman
There has been considerable buzz this summer (admittedly in some pretty esoteric circles) about the Black Prince tomato, a Siberian heirloom originally from Irkutsk.
Since I’m in favor of anything that allows me to use the word “Irkutsk” in casual conversation, I decided to look into it.
A number of garden bloggers, including RKayne at GardenGuides and Kathy at Skippy’s Vegetable Garden, not to mention Tomato Casual’s own Michael Nolan, have raved about Black Prince.
They all say its striking beauty and intense flavor make it a favorite. Well, that’s enough to pique my interest.
Plenty of chefs are smitten with Black Prince too. Alexandra at Alexandra’s Kitchen talks about the delicious simple summer salad she made with Black Princes from the farmers’ market. And at the San Francisco restaurant Aqua, they do something with it that you’ll have to see for yourself, as I am at a loss for how to describe it. OK, now I’m really paying attention.
And then there are the more surprising appearances. Black tomato (not Black Prince, but close enough) shows up as the name of a band on MySpace, an online travel company, and a restaurant in Ottowa. And at The Red Shoes, you can buy an original watercolor featuring Black Prince tomatoes.
All in all, I’m thinking I’ll have to try this one next year. Sounds like it could give my beloved Cherokee Purples a run for their money.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:33 am
We have to agree with the other raves you have heard about this wonderful tomato. Because of its place of origin, the Black Prince was touted as having the ability to thrive in cooler temperatures. Not sure what our Seattle summer held in store for us, we put in one seedling to test it out. WOW!! The plant grew beyond it’s four foot tall cage and ran up and over our small cherry tree it appeared to be using as a support.
What we yielded were clusters of 8-12 beautiful tomatoes. It was amazing. We also planted a Paul Robeson and a Purple Cherokee to see how those dark tomatoes did in our climate and, although we did yield a batch of great tomatoes from each, the Black Prince was the winner in yield and flavor hands down.
On a culinary note, they sauce up into the most beautiful, rich, smooth tasting sauce we’ve ever made. We have canned about a dozen quarts of our “Black Beauty” sauce (all three black/purple varieties cooked together) and now we have about 25 pounds of the Black Prince alone to sauce and can from our final harvest.
We are so impressed with this new-found wonder we have already set aside an entire bed for four plants next year. YUMM!!
October 10th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Well, if Shibaguyz love it, the I’m sold. Sign me up!
October 13th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I love them and was heartbroken when I couldn’t keep the ones I’d seeded early this year after my move.