Tomato 'Costoluto Fiorentino' makes a great pizza topping

Tomato 'Costoluto Fiorentino'. What a beauty. 

Thursday's session was mostly in praise of a new tomato variety we have tried this year at Windmill - the tomato 'Costoluto Fiorentino'. Not sure what costoluto translates as, because Google won't oblige, but Fiorentino means it comes from Florence, so we hoped it would bring a taste of Italy with it. The tomato doesn't disappoint with a really nice fruity hit of flavour, which is less sweet than most cherry tomatoes, but still strong enough to make a great sauce. It is meaty, with very few seeds. It is heavily ribbed, but this isn't an issue if you just slice it across its width, and the resulting slices look really attractive with their scalloped edges. We think the green ones will be amazing for making fried green tomatoes, especially because they seem to hold their shape well when cut..

These tomatoes have the added value, as we saw on Monday, of providing some fun deformed fruits which taste fine, but can look quite entertaining.

Tracey used the first pick of the crop to make tomato sauce for pizza, and we fired up the oven. One of the things we proved is that the wind direction and speed makes a big difference to the way the oven functions, especially because it was strong enough to blow back down the chimney a few times, even with a healthy fire going. That meant it took a bit longer than usual to provide a pizza treat for the volunteers of the day. Despite a bit of a wait (hey, more weeding time - what's not to like!) Guy, Joyce, Ash, Chris and Mac were very happy to enjoy a well-deserved snack. Mac is a vegan, so we used almond butter instead of cheese on his, and he had a bit of a fight on his hands as several folk wanted to tuck in to try it.

Pizzas ready for action

The finished article