The New York Times > Opinion > Editorial: The Unshapely Tomato: “When it comes to tomatoes, being round and red isn’t good enough. Hundreds of traditional varieties exist in colors ranging from near-black to near-white. They come in an astonishing variety of shapes: long and cylindrical, pointed, lobed, and ridged. Some are striped, and some have fuzzy skins, like peaches’. Some are meant for canning, some for slicing, and some to be eaten while you’re standing in the garden looking for tomato worms.
“Yet Americans still believe that a veritable tomato is round and red. We have committees — honest, official committees backed by the rule of law — to enforce that belief. It is time for some heterodoxy in the official tomato world. The Florida Tomato Committee should reconsider its stand on UglyRipes. And American shoppers should begin planning their summer tomato patches now.’