Reported from South America by the conquistadors, the tomato needs sun to ripen. Also, during our winter, it is either imported from the Great South (Morocco, Spain) or produced in France, but sheltered from greenhouses, above ground and bottled with industrial nutrients. No miracle, therefore: the tomato naturally matured in the sun appears best in its form and its flavor only between mid-June and mid-October.

Outside this period (a third of the year, nevertheless), to cook fresh tomatoes leads only to disappointments: flesh pale pale and farinaceous, absent taste. Also forget the tomato paste, often mentioned by old recipes, to metallic taste. And prefer the quality canned tomato or, better still, the frozen tomato, which is precipitated frozen in the saucepan for a minute sauce (presented in dices or in peeled quarters, it is also practical in summer, in order to save time ).

Getty Images - William Reavell (c) Dorling Kindersley

Where to buy good tomatoes?

Surely not in his supermarket. The current tomato has been sacrificed in order to meet the needs of large-scale retailers. Rather than a powerful and nuanced flavor, it has been preferred to give it a long shelf life, a thick skin (to resist the handling of the customers), a uniform and flattering appearance. Yet, tasty tomatoes that develop the taste proper to their variety, without uniformity (neither appearance nor flavor), still exist. The proof is that about three hundred varieties of tomatoes are grown in France, six hundred and fifty of them can be discovered at the Conservatoire national de la tomate (at the Château de la Bourdaisière in Montlouis-sur-Loire) and more than two thousand are kept in Avignon by the National Institute of Agricultural Research.

To please oneself, it is enough to go to its market and to locate the local market gardeners who propose real tomatoes of different ancient varieties, cultivated in ground, necessarily in season, sometimes in organic, often bizarrely formed but always freshly picked: the sooner the tomato is consumed after picking, the better it is. Buy only what is needed (they do not keep for more than three days) and never store them in the refrigerator. The cold breaks their aromas.

The illusion of heart-of-beef tomato

Until recently, large producers proposed ancient varieties such as green zebra, heart-of-beef, black-decrimée or rose-of-berne. In reality, they had only the appearance of these old tomatoes but never their authentic flavor. Even worse, the heart-of-beef sold at the time, in the shape of a large, ribbed and ribbed chaplain, did not even resemble its original model, whose real shape is that of a heart, pointed at the base. Today, these misleading names are disappearing.

4 recipes with tomatoes

• Provençal tomatoes

Preparation time: 10 min. Cooking time: 35 min.

For 6 people: 12 tomatoes, 6 tbsp. to s. of olive oil, 3 cloves of garlic, 4 tsp. to s. chopped parsley, salt, pepper.

Cut the tomatoes in half horizontally and seed them. In two non-stick pans, heat oil over high heat. Place the tomatoes, sliced ​​on the pan, for 5 min. Turn them over and let them cook for at least 20 min on very low heat, covering to three quarters.

Shake the pans frequently so that the tomatoes do not stick. When they begin to shrivel on the surface, sprinkle with chopped garlic and parsley. Let them cook another 5 min. Salt and pepper. Serve warm, warm or cold.

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• Tatin tatin of vanilla green tomatoes

Preparation: 20 min. Cooking time: 40 min.

For 8 people: 12 green zebra tomatoes, 150 g caster sugar, 40 g butter, 2 sachets of vanilla sugar, pepper, 1 pure sand paste to unroll.

Preheat oven to 180 ° C. Rinse the tomatoes, then cut into thin slices. In a tatin or missed pan, melt the butter and sugar until caramelized. Out of the fire, place the washers in the mold by overlapping them. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar and pepper lightly. Bake them for about 20 minutes (to watch over): the tomatoes must have melted well,
and the juice that they let go, look a little syrupy.

Let them cool, then cover them with the dough that you make penetrate between the tomatoes and the edge of the mold. Bake again for 15 to 20 min (it should lightly brown on the surface). At the end of the oven, remove the tart from a serving dish.

The genes that will give them more taste:
Varietal improvements in tomato have long been concerned with size, firmness, disease resistance, storage and yield. Never on taste. To remedy this, a team of researchers from the universities of Florida, Shenzhen, Beijing, Valencia and Jerusalem worked on the issue, and published its study in the journal Science in January. With the sequencing of the tomato genome (carried out in 2012) and an extensive tasting of 398 varieties (modern, old and wild), it has identified the genes that provide weak taste,
such as those found in "modern" tomatoes. It is now necessary to wait three or four years before obtaining, by natural crosses, tomatoes endowed with the right genetic formula. The one before.

• Gaspacho andalou and goat mousse

Preparation: 20 min. No cooking.

For 6 people: 1.2 kg of ripe tomatoes, 1 cucumber, 2 red peppers, 1 green pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 new onions, 2 rusks, 4 tbsp. to s. of olive oil, 2 tsp. to s. sherry vinegar, salt, Espelette pepper. For goat mousse: 1 fresh goat (type Petit Billy), 4 tbsp. to s. of milk, 1 bunch of chives.

Scald the tomatoes 30 s in water, then chill them. Peel them and seed them. Cut the peeled and seeded cucumber into sections. Remove the stalk and seeds from the peppers; cut it half into small cubes, and the rest into sections. Chop the onions. Peel the garlic. Mix tomatoes, cucumber, pepper stones, garlic, rusks, oil and vinegar. Season and keep cool. Drop the goat with the milk.

Season with chives. Serve in individual bowls, sprinkled with pepper and onion cubes, place in the center 1 tsp. to c. Goat.

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• Bolognaise sauce

Preparation: 30 min. Cooking time: 30 min.

For 1.5 l: 3 tsp. to s. olive oil, 2 onions, 1 carrot, 1 garlic clove, 1 celery stalk, 300 g low ground beef rib, 1 kg tomatoes, 1 bouquet garni, 1/4 bunch parsley dish, salt and pepper.

In hot oil, sweat onions and sliced ​​carrots. Add the chopped garlic and celery. Let cook on low heat for 3 or 4 min. Add the meat by crumbling it, and mix. Stir until the flesh turns gray. Rinse and cut the tomatoes into pieces. Pass them to the mashed potato press over the saucepan where meat and herbs are cooked. Add the bouquet garni, salt and simmer for at least 25 min (the sauce must appear thickened); 5 min before finishing, add the chopped parsley, adjust the seasoning and pepper.

Keep cool in a jar and consume within three days.

Getty Images -Ross Durant Photography

What tomato for which dish?

• The cluster and the round

They are juicy and good at everything.

• The cherry and the cocktail

They are very crunchy, suitable for aperitif, tart or salad.

• The elongated, the Latin and the retort

They are perfect to cook because poor in vegetation water (which makes the sauces watery and long to cook).

• Padre

It makes it possible to make delicious carpaccios (like the heart-of-beef variety).

• The fleshy, the ribbed and the zebra.

These are the best for salads.