Feature Article |
In Search of the Jersey Tomato
Will this summer icon be forgotten now that we’re eating tomatoes 365 days a year? Not at small farms like Princeton’s Terhune Orchards
By April White
- Photo by Buff Strickland
Watch our exclusive slideshow of Jersey's most coveted summer fruit.
THE STORY OF THE JERSEY TOMATO begins, not on an idyllic farm, but at the old Salem County Courthouse. On September 26th, 1820, just after noon, Robert Gibbon Johnson mounted the stairs of the courthouse carrying a basket of ripe, red tomatoes. A crowd began to gather. Johnson was going to eat a tomato! Doctor James Van Meter stood at his side as Johnson, one of the county’s wealthiest and most respected citizens, addressed the onlookers. Holding up one of the tomatoes, which were widely believed to be poisonous, he announced, “The time will come when this luscious scarlet tomato, rich in nutrition, a delight to the eye, a joy to the palate whether fried, baked, broiled or even eaten raw, will form the foundation of a great garden industry.” Then he bit into the tomato, and kept on eating until the basket was empty. From that moment on, The Jersey Tomato wasn’t just a booming New Jersey industry, but a round, red icon of summer.
It’s the perfect creation story for a food that defines the New Jersey summer as definitively as the cheesesteak defines Philadelphia, except for this: Robert Johnson’s often-recounted tomato-tasting is probably nothing but a myth. But then, maybe that’s fitting, because the ideal of The Jersey Tomato is also pure myth.
Chances are you’re shaking your head right now. If you’re of a certain age, you knew The Jersey Tomato, and have a very clear memory of it: a heavy, orange-red, slightly flattened sphere, thin-skinned and meaty, with rich flesh, almost jelly-like seed pockets, and an intense sweet-tart flavor. It was good enough to eat plain, standing over the sink, or seasoned with a light rain of salt, or sliced thickly on Wonder Bread slathered with Hellmann’s. And every August, you scour roadside farm stands in search of that perfect Jersey Tomato.
Yes, that tomato did exist in New Jersey — in the 1970s — but it’s only one in a long line of tomato varieties to have worn the Jersey Tomato crown (or the Jersey Tomato brand, owned by Eastern Fresh Growers Inc.). The truth is, The Jersey Tomato has always been whatever it was that people were hungry for.
It’s the perfect creation story for a food that defines the New Jersey summer as definitively as the cheesesteak defines Philadelphia, except for this: Robert Johnson’s often-recounted tomato-tasting is probably nothing but a myth. But then, maybe that’s fitting, because the ideal of The Jersey Tomato is also pure myth.
Chances are you’re shaking your head right now. If you’re of a certain age, you knew The Jersey Tomato, and have a very clear memory of it: a heavy, orange-red, slightly flattened sphere, thin-skinned and meaty, with rich flesh, almost jelly-like seed pockets, and an intense sweet-tart flavor. It was good enough to eat plain, standing over the sink, or seasoned with a light rain of salt, or sliced thickly on Wonder Bread slathered with Hellmann’s. And every August, you scour roadside farm stands in search of that perfect Jersey Tomato.
Yes, that tomato did exist in New Jersey — in the 1970s — but it’s only one in a long line of tomato varieties to have worn the Jersey Tomato crown (or the Jersey Tomato brand, owned by Eastern Fresh Growers Inc.). The truth is, The Jersey Tomato has always been whatever it was that people were hungry for.
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