Beefsteak tomato facts for kids
A beef tomato (also called a beefsteak tomato) is one of the biggest kinds of tomatoes you can grow! These tomatoes are super large, with some weighing as much as a small football, around 450 grams (1 lb) or more.
Most beef tomatoes are pink or red. If you slice one open, you'll see many small sections inside where the seeds are. Sometimes, they have cool, bumpy ridges on the outside, a bit like very old types of tomatoes. People who grow their own vegetables love beef tomatoes because they are perfect for big sandwiches or as a topping for large steaks. However, you don't often see them grown on big farms for stores. This is because their large size and shape make them harder to pick and process using machines compared to smaller, rounder tomatoes.
Popular Beef Tomato Varieties
There are many different kinds of beef tomatoes, each with its own special qualities. Here are some common ones:
- Beefmaster VFN (a popular type created by mixing two different tomatoes)
- Beefsteak VFN
- Big Beef
- Brandywine (a pink tomato that is an heirloom variety, meaning it's an old type passed down through generations)
- Bucking Bronco
- Cherokee Purple (a dark red or purple beefsteak tomato, famous for its amazing taste)
- Marmande
- Mortgage Lifter (another popular heirloom tomato)
- Pink Beefsteak
'Beef Heart' Tomatoes: Cuore di bue and Cœur de bœuf
In Italy and France, there's a special type of beef tomato that looks just like a beef heart! It's pointy at the bottom, which is why it got its name. In Italy, this tomato is called Cuore di bue, which means "ox heart."
The name Cuore di bue is officially registered in Italy, which means only certain tomatoes can use that name. But in France, where they call it cœur de bœuf, some companies use this name for different kinds of tomatoes, even if they don't have the exact "heart" shape or the same qualities. This can sometimes make it tricky to know exactly what kind of tomato you're getting!
