Sugar Rush
Last week my husband and I made our annual Spring trip to the plant nursery to buy our vegetable plants. This year is our 10th gardening season, and tomatoes have always been a staple in our backyard garden beds. In our little red wagon, I had the same two varieties of cherry tomatoes we grow every year. Because they are dependable and always produce a plethora of fruit, they are the automatic choice. The workhorses of our garden and we never really considered purchasing anything different.
While wheeling our wagon to the ticket counter, I spied a tag on one of the tomato tables that caught my attention: Red Sugar Rush.
Hummmmmm. If ever there was a “tomato branding” department they would need to be given kudos for reaching their intended target audience. Me.
Anyone that knows me KNOWS that I have a profound affinity for sweets. I love donuts and cookies and sweet tea. Much to my dismay, my doctor recently announced that I am pre-diabetic and I would need to cut down on all of that stuff. SURELY he can’t mean a sugary sweet tomato? I mean come on. It is a vegetable. (For those who say it is a fruit: In 1893, the US Supreme Court ruled a tomato is a vegetable and not a fruit. This was for taxation purposes and the group acknowledged tomatoes are botanically fruit.)
In any case, the tomato plant tag went on to say that they are super-sweet. One of the sweetest and highest Brix ratings for this type of tomato. Plants produce long trusses of elongated, firm fruits that have a real crunch. Early maturing and very productive all season.
SOLD! For the first time in many years, we purchased a different variety of cherry tomatoes. The name (Red Sugar Rush) sucked me in and now we may have a possible new favorite variety. We shall see.
On the car ride home this got me wondering HOW or WHO gets to name (or in essence “brand”) the various varieties of tomatoes. I spent an inordinate amount of time for the rest of the afternoon researching tomatoes and their names on Google.
The simple answer? Stories. It all seems to boil down to a good story.
Take the Mortgage Lifer Heirloom tomato for example. According to the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Charlie Byles was a West Virginia mechanic who in the 1930s crossed the largest tomatoes he could find with a German Johnson tomato. His new variety was a huge hit, he was selling the seedlings for one dollar each with people driving from miles around to purchase them. From his tomato seedling sales, he was able to pay off the $6,000 mortgage on his home. Hence the tomato name: Mortgage Lifer.
What about new varieties today that don’t have the benefit of a colorful, vintage backstory? Bernard L. Pollack, Rutgers professor emeritus of plant breeding and genetics, explains what is involved in naming a new variety: “Every plant breeder tries to use a name for a new introduction that relates significantly to the local area, state, or institution. The name may be of historical importance but not always. It can be a unique color, time of ripening, or in some cases just a number. Hopefully, the name is unique enough to help sell the release, at least until the new variety stands or falls on its own merits.”
I was never able to track down the person who named the Sugar Rush variety. I assume it was named for its high Brix rating by someone who also likes donuts, cookies, and sweet tea.
Story is KING. Even in tomatoes.
