A Farmer Explains the Difference

A long time ago, my best friend often ordered a salad for lunch in the cafeteria. Every salad had a cherry tomato over it, and mostly he shot through the room when she tried to spear her with her plastic fork.

That is what I think every time I see cherry tomatoes in the shop. Or were they perhaps torted tomatoes? I’m not sure if I know the difference.

The difference between cherry and tort gate tomatoes

I took my burning questions to the fourth generation farmer, Paul Mastronardi, the president and CEO of Sunset products. Sunset grows all types of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and berries, so he is the expert I needed.

“While they can be used interchangeable, there are differences,” he says. Mastronardi added that cherry tomatoes are longer than grape tomatoes that are new on the North American market. In other words, that was definitely a cherry tomato on my friend’s salad.

Both types of tomatoes are relatively small, but look closely and you will find many differences.

• Form: Cherry tomatoes are round, while torment tomatoes are oval. “Total tomatoes look more like grapes and are usually smaller than cherry tomatoes,” says Mastronardi. Cherry tomatoes are round – like cherries.
• Taste: Both varieties are cute, but the flavors and textures vary. “Total tomatoes are usually meaty and less juicy than cherry tomatoes,” says Mastronardi. You have a more traditional tomato taste. “Cherry tomatoes tend to have the juicy bursts when he is in a bitten,” he adds.
• Color: Cherry tomatoes are available in a rainbow made of colors, including red, brown, orange, yellow, green and purple. Total tomatoes are available in red, orange and yellow.

How to select the right tomatoes for your recipe

Keep an eye on the goal of your recipe. “If you want something with less moisture content, say for a salsa, then a grapes can be a better choice,” says Mastronardi. “If you want something that breaks a little more in a dish, then Cherry fits well.”

He says that torment tomatoes are a good choice to throw a salad or cook with pasta, like this Caponata noodle recipe. They are also good blasily, also known as baked until they have come. “Total tomatoes can be easier to cut because they are meaty and less juicier than cherry tomatoes,” he says.

Mastronardi likes cherry tomatoes directly as a snack, but also as a supplement to pasta or homemade pizza.

In most cases, cherry tomatoes can be replaced and vice versa with torment tomatoes.

“The availability of different varieties – color, taste, texture – of cherry tomatoes is a lot of fun exploring and using different options,” says Mastronardi.