Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Omar's Lebanese taste test


Despite being the heaviest hit from that sudden case of blight, I was able to harvest one Omar's Lebanese that I had left to ripen completely on the vine (albeit naked of leaves and severely cropped). It weighed in at 22 ounces which did lessen the pain of losing them just before they had a chance to completely turn color. I placed the saved green ones in the basement and a few ripened on their own with no sign of blight. *Deep sigh of relief here*


At different stages of ripening. The color turns a deep red-pink.

This pink beefsteak tomato tastes more on the sweet side to me. The surprising thing about OL is that there was much more flesh in relation to seed pulp, but the tomato itself is very juicy. I'm more of a black or purple tomato person as I love the smoky flavor that they develop into, but I can't even remember my CP's having this higher ratio of flesh. This is a good one to end up in a blt or on top of a burger.


Another thing about Omar's Lebanese is that the vines are incredibly robust! Maybe a little too much if you consider the "hemorrhoids" of the one below. Heavy flower production but they were the last to set fruit. It's not common to use tomato cages in Italy (I've never even seen them here), so the only alternative is to use bamboo poles or stakes and fasten them with ties. Not sure how things would've worked out if there had been 2 to 4 pound fruit as I've seen mentioned by other gardeners. In any case, I don't intend to grow these again next year.


Average daytime temperature: 33°C / 91°F

7 comments:

K and S said...

those are beauties, I'm glad you had at least some good ones despite that awful blight!

~TastyTravels~ said...

Perfect tomatoes! I've head of OL but never tasted them before. If you like smokey or black/purple tomatoes, my favs are the Carbon and Paul Robeson. If you see it around, you should try it.

Andrea said...

Great to hear some of your tomatoes did ripen,the beefsteak looks good.I havn't tried the OL but have had good success with Black Russian.So many different varieties to choose from and always good to hear how they preform for others. Ciao.

Rowena said...

Kat - win some, lose some, but atleast I'll be able to have some oven-dried tomatoes and tomato sauce to use for the winter.

Holly - ♥ black, smoky toms, and I did hear of the Paul Robesons but will need to wait until I get to Kauai and order seeds.

Andrea - I finally realized that apart from good soil, cooperative weather makes all the difference in the world too. Well, until next year!

chaiselongue1 said...

I'm glad something was saved from the blight. And this tomato looks wonderful. It looks a bit like the Turkish pink ones I've grown from seed sent to me by Beste in Normandy - they are huge, too, and rather misshapen but sweet.

Rowena said...

chaiselongue - I was surprised to note that the taste of the half ripe ones also developed to a sweet flavor which I wasn't expecting when I turned some into a quick sauce for pasta. I'll have to look up those turkish pinks.

Andrew @ 101 Centavos said...

Nice.... looks a bit like a Costoluto Genovese, nice and ribbed.