Cream of the Crops.

Image Gallery Jaune Flamme' tomatoes

Edited by Brook Elliott

Great taste is one of the biggest reasons to grow your own garden, yet many of the best-tasting varieties are becoming hard to find. That's because our current food system often values shelf life and shipping qualities more than taste and tenderness. MOTHER'S Cream of the Crop series presents outstanding varieties recommended by our green-thumbed readers.

'JAUNE FLAMME' ORANGE TOMATO

An old French variety, 'Jaune Flamme' is a fabulous fresh-eating tomato with an explosive, intense flavor that shines through any salad dressing with ease.

The outer walls are thick and meaty, with just enough juice to provide a full-bodied, citrus-like flavor that surprises all who try it for the first time. The real joy is cutting into one. The yellow-orange skin yields to beautiful red-mottled flesh inside.

Although this heirloom is excellent for fresh salads, it reaches its full potential as a drying tomato. It has such an exquisite flavor that I use it exclusively when baking, especially in breads.

A joy to grow as well as to eat, the plants are indeterminate (bearing fruit continuously) and early producers, and seem resistant to many diseases that normally plague tomatoes. The fruits are held in clusters of six to eight, each fruit the size of a golf ball or slightly larger.

Seed is available from the Seed Savers Exchange catalog and Tomato Growers Supply (listed as 'Flamme').

MELODY ROSE
Benton, Kentucky

'TOBACCO WORM' SNAP BEANS

Tobacco Worm' is the standard by which I judge all other snap beans. A pole variety, it has pods that grow thick as your finger and 6 or more inches long, yet never turn woody or fibrous. Even when filled out with their average of six seeds, they remain tender-crisp as long as they are green. 'Tobacco Worm' has a rich, deep flavor without the high sugar content that makes many other snap beans seem overly sweet to me. Like most old-time varieties, 'Tobacco Worm' has zipper strings that are easily removed when you snap off the tips before cooking.