For flavour and texture, beefsteak tomatoes are hard to beat. Their large size and fairly flat fruit make them good for sandwiches, and they have thick flesh and less seed than other tomato types, meaning the flavour is less acid.
Growing beefsteak tomatoes
The ones I grew this season were something of a pleasant surprise. I didn’t order a beefsteak type from the seed catalogue, as they are known to not cope well with wet summers like we have here, but a few of my plants turned out to bear these large, convoluted and fleshy fruit.
They were supposed to be black tomatoes, but these ripen through red to an almost purple blush. The main photo shows some that I picked after a wet spell. You can see that they split at the top, and they aren’t particularly pretty, but the taste was great, and they are Bill’s favourite.
As they are slow to ripen and prone to last minute rotting and other disasters, I tend to pick them as the base turns pink, and let them ripen on the bench which brings them to a purply red. The tops stay green. If you’re in a dry Summer area you could probably leave them to ripen fully and get the most flavour from them.
Beyond the excellent flavour they are great in mixed tomato salads, where they can contrast with sharper more seedy types with their generous size and rich colour. I wouldn’t waste mine on cooking, but if you had plenty they would be great for everything from relishes to sauce to jam.
These are definitely seed savers for next planting. I will give them another go for an early start to catch the dry Spring weather, and hope one season will favour a big crop.