The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table: Recipes, Portraits, and History of the World's Most Beautiful Fruit

It's clearly the best book on heirloom tomatoes that I have ever seen. The photos are gorgeous, and the case for heirlooms is so thoughtfully, persuasively and artfully presented, I'd have a tough time even considering hybrids. The realization that the true Brandywine is really red and with regular leaves is worth the price of the book alone. Pretty enough to be a cocktail book, and nearly informative enough to be an Encyclopedia, it's a reference I refer to often. The only criticism I have are the few curious exceptions. Not including Arkansas Traveler, Sara Black and many others is confounding. Neglecting any reference of Cherokee Purple, considered by many to be the best tasting tomato of all time, is criminal. She does, at least, include my favorite, the beautiful, perfectly balanced, reliable, French Jaune Flamme.

Needless to say that the photography is stunning enough to make any gardener long to grow heirloom tomatoes themselves; but the instructions and seed sources are what I found particularly helpful. Also, the synopsis of some of the most well known heirloom tomato varieties was interesting and particularly helpful for choosing varieties which I would like to grow. How so you may ask? The varieties are ranked according to taste (all tomatoes do NOT taste alike and therefor I can choose the tastiest varieties) and how best to use them (fresh,canned, sauce) along with some very tasty recipes. I highly recommend this book,it was a pleasure to read and an informative garden to table guide.

A beautiful collection of pictures and information about heirloom tomatoes. The growing instructions are succinct and clearly written with something new for any gardener - regardless of their experience. The used books are incredible bargains for this kind of book. Don't pass them up.

I received this Book from my best buddy, I have been growing Heirloom Tomato's for over 30 years, It was finally great to see not only pictures but information on some of these long lost tomatoes. Time to replace the shinny taste less tomatoes at your local store, grow these and youll know what a tomatoes taste like. So I to purchased this book and gave as a gift.

There is very little in this book about actually growing tomatoes. That material covers just a few pages. The rest of the book is a catalog of tomato plants and recipes. And much of the printed type is script and very tiny making it difficult to read.

The Heirloom Tomato is one of the best books on this subject to date! Amy tells you the size, weight, shape, exterior color, flesh color, texture, and most importantly the flavor and best uses of a particular heirloom. Who wants to bother with growing a tomato that has only poor to fair flavor? I also want to know the tomato's best uses so that I can have a good mix in my garden. She includes the origin, synonyms, seed sources, and her own critique. The pictures are glorious, and she includes numerous recipes in the back. The Cream of Tomato Soup is to die for! I gave this book to my daughter-in-law for Christmas, as she grows all of our tomatoes from seed. I get to pick out the ten types we will grow this year; Amy's book takes all of the challenge out of that daunting task! I probably will buy one for my own home.

Author Amy Goldman has put together one of the most beautiful books available on heirloom tomatoes. Once you discover heirloom gardening, you will never buy a hybrid or genetically altered seed or plant again, no matter how they hype it up. Heirlooms will adapt to your soil and climate, and be much stronger, needing limited amounts of pesticides, if any, making them perfect for the organic gardener. Most will have those "old timey" exquisite flavors that you have been missing, but may not have realized it until you start eating them. Who knew that there were so many types of heirloom tomatoes that have withstood the test of time? Until reading this book, I didn't even know that white tomatoes existed before hybridization became popular, and was pretty much ignored because the red tomato was preferred by the public. The white tomato, Great White, is said to have an "Excellent; divinely sweet" flavor, while White Beauty's flavor is described modestly as "Excellent".Miss Goldman's chapters include tips on how to grow tomatoes and how to save the seeds for planting next years crop. She then goes on to describe the differet types of tomatoes: cherry, globe, ribbed, beefsteak, pear, and oxheart; and then various color groups are discussed, such as: white, yellow, orange, striped, black, and green. The full color photos are all very tastfully done by Victor Schrager, many of them masterpieces of art, which make it so easy to enjoy this book. The last chapter is full of tomato recipes: Gazpacho, stuffed tomatoes, tomato sauces, butter, tomato bread, salsa, fried green tomatoes, tomato chips, chutney, pickles, ketchup, tomato cocktail, and many more.I bought my heirloom seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, [...], but there are also additional seed sources available in the back of the book. You will not be disappointed with this book.It will be difficult to find another book on heirloom tomatoes with so much information. Amazon also sells it cheaper than I could find anywhere else.

Amy opened my eyes and started me on a quest to grow a wide variety and the best tasting tomatoes possible.I didn't even like tomatoes as an adult. I did as a kid and after I grew some for my wife is realized I love home grown tomatoes.To have the room other time to grow 500 different varieties of tomatoes like Amy, wow!I feel.im doing well growing 40 different varieties in Colorado.Last season we lost a month to a last cold spring, endured over half a dozen hail storms.Still have a few jars of tomatoes in the pantry from last season.After experiencing the flavor and different varieties it's hard to enjoy store bought even from the pricey high end grocery stores

This is a great book for anyone seriously interested in tomato varieties. It has lots of information (more than you will find elsewhere) about the huge number of varieties it describes and evaluates. Although American based, some of the varieties are available in the UK from specialist seed suppliers.

There's a lot more to this than I expected. Lots of really good information on a wide range of heirloom tomato varieties, wonderful photographs, and really nice recipes.

A lovely well written and beautifully illustrated book. Normally when a book has lots of photographs they tend to be there to fill out the pages when you would prefer details and text, but this book is not just about the details but the beauty of heritage varieties of tomato. Well worth owning and inspirational.

We love this book. A good overall view of some of the more popular heirloom tomatoes with scientific facts. The author gives her honest opinion on flavours, which we appreciate to help us decide what to grow in future years.

After getting this book from the library multiple times, I had to get this book for myself. The photographs are stunning and the information on each variety is quite detailed. I can't wait to grow more of the varieties talked about in this book.