Rich Sisti knows his tomatoes. Like a vintner of fine wines, Sisti, a native of Paterson, has crafted and maintained unique strands of tomatoes, known as heirlooms, for the past 15 years at his farm near High Point, N.J.
On Aug. 29, the Hoboken Historical Museum will host an “Heirloom Tomato Tasting Festival” featuring 40 of Sisti’s gourmet tomatoes, in the breezeway outside the museum’s entrance at 1301 Hudson St. from 1 to 5 p.m.
Now in its 11th year, the festival has become a trademark, end-of-summer ritual for museum director Bob Foster.
“It’s always bittersweet for me,” he said. “It signals the end of summer, and [the notion] that no one will be in Hoboken [for August]. But every year it seems like half the city comes out.”
“They may not look good, but they’ll taste good.” – Rich Sisti
________
“People love food,” Foster said. “It’s a rare chance for people to sample unique tomatoes and purchase them right on the spot.”
Sisti said he brings about 800 pounds of tomatoes to the event, along with hundreds of pounds of other vegetables. “Sometimes there’s a long line to even get in,” he said. “It’s non-stop busy all day long.”
Keeping traditions alive
Heirlooms are specific strands of tomatoes that enthusiasts have saved and passed down over generations. They are usually the most flavorful and exotic, like Cherokee Purple, which has a distinctive black skin and rich taste. Heirlooms are the Ferraris of tomatoes.
“They’re about ethnic backgrounds,” Foster said. “If you’re Italian, you’ve always heard your parents or grandparents talk about tomatoes from the old country, for example. That is an heirloom tomato.”
Rarely perfectly round and red, like most supermarket-bought tomatoes, heirlooms can look gnarly and knotty. “Everyone is used to buying tomatoes in the supermarket, where there’s not a whole lot of selection and the tomatoes are bred for shelf-life, the perfect reddish color and full shape,” Foster said.
Sisti also admitted heirlooms might not win a beauty contest: “They may not look good, but they’ll taste good,” he said.
Around 300 varieties of heirloom tomatoes exist, with dozens of unique characteristics – like “thin-skinned, sweet, peppery” – that are very important to “discriminating palettes.”
Some of the most popular heirlooms are the flavorful “Brandywine Pink” and “Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter,” which was so popular when it was introduced in the 1930s that the creator of the strand claimed the money from the tomatoes helped him save his house.
Gourmet garlic
Another very popular event featuring Catalpa Ridge Farms returns to Hoboken in October, the “Heirloom Garlic Tasting” on Oct. 17, also from 1 to 5 p.m., and will offer a variety of produce, in addition to unique forms of garlic.
For more information on Catalpa Ridge Farm, visit their website, www.jerseygrown.com.
Other exhibits
After getting their fill of farm food on Aug. 29, visitors can also take in the current exhibit at the museum called “Surveying the World: Keuffel & Esser, and Hoboken.” The Keuffel & Esser company manufactured surveying equipment in Hoboken for almost a century. For more information about events, go to the museum’s website: ww.hobokenmuseum.org.
Sean Allocca can be reached at editorial@hudsonreporter.com