You Say Tomato, I Say Confusion

Something's happened when I was paying attention to other matters, and I'm not sure who's responsible. It could be marketing geniuses, or it might be those white lab coat guys.

The other day I was out shopping and bought a small container of very healthy looking tiny tomatoes. I like those things, they're fun to throw on salads and especially good for tossing in my favorite pasta sauce, the one that starts with olive oil, garlic, and hot dry peppers.

The thing that surprised me was about these tomatoes is that they're named pearl tomatoes, well, that and they don't look to me like pearls at all.
There was a time, when I was growing up, that tomatoes were either plum, cherry, or just plain tomatoes. Those days were easy. Then I started seeing vine-ripened tomatoes all over the place, and those were much tastier than the plain old ones and, also, had a bit of twig on them. That made them look natural and, no doubt, increased sales by a factor of ten.

Once on a camping trip near the Colorado River a whole group of us were out of our minds and began craving something to eat, something refreshing that would soothe our palates and counter-act the oppressive, tortuous sun. We came up with salad as what we wanted, and I began joking about a field of cherry tomatoes that lay just over the nearby hills. I almost convinced someone to go get some, but it was mostly a running joke for the duration of the trip.

Cherry tomatoes, we knew without doubt, would save us.

I haven't seen cherry tomatoes in years, but many of their cousins populate the food stores I go to. There's the above-mentioned pearl tomatoes, but I've also seen grape tomatoes, and I'm damned if I can tell the difference. Cherry tomatoes were round, but these later small fruits (vegetables?) have the plum shape. Plum, or Roma, tomatoes are usually available, and I'm grateful for their continued presence since they're excellent with fresh Mozarella, basil, a drizzling of oil, and salt and pepper. That's a summertime treat that looks like the Italian flag if you don't look too closely.

I have no idea when this tomato madness will end, what other "varieties" they'll invent, but for my money we've done enough.