Treasured heirloom tomatoes are at their peak

James Worley fell in love with tomatoes around the same time he fell in love with his wife.

“When we were dating, instead of bringing her flowers, I would bring tomatoes from roadside stands,” Worley says.

After they got married, Worley and his wife, Jennifer Nugent, bought a house in south Kansas City and planted three garden beds. Now their yard boasts 35 beds bursting with 80 varieties of heirloom tomatoes in all shapes, sizes and colors, from classic red to deep purple and vibrant yellow.

Unlike conventionally grown tomatoes, heirloom varieties are pollinated naturally by insects, birds or wind. There are thousands of documented species, each with a distinct name and flavor profile.

About five years ago, old-school heirlooms blossomed into widespread popularity, says local grower Liz Kurlbaum of Kurlbaum’s Heirloom Tomatoes in Kansas City, Kan. Now the arrival of the summer fruit is a highly anticipated event for local gardeners, chefs and farmers market customers.

Every summer Worley organizes a tasting for dozens of local tomato lovers. About 100 people participated in this year’s tasting in late July at the Local Pig’s East Bottoms location. They sampled 48 varieties with names such as Sunrise Bumblebee, Lucky Tiger and Purple Dream, and declared Brad’s Black Heart the best of the bunch. The heart-shaped fruit has burgundy flesh ripe with complex flavors.

“That’s the beauty of the tomato,” Worley says. “There’s one to suit every taste.”

Heirlooms are like wines: Each has its own set of nuanced flavors. Red and pink tomato varieties often “have that old-timey acid bite you remember from the tomatoes at Grandma’s house,” Worley says, while yellow and orange varieties are sweet and mellow. Green heirlooms often taste light and citrusy; purples are earthy and rich.

The chef orders about 200 pounds of heirlooms every week and uses them in specials at four Westport restaurants and bars: McCoy’s Public House, the Foundry, Beer Kitchen and Char Bar. He uses the tomatoes in tacos at the Foundry, crabcakes at Char Bar and even ice cream at Beer Kitchen.

Peterson says he uses a simpler recipe at home: “Salt and pepper, knife and fork.”

This week, all four Beer KC restaurants have two to five tomato specials on the menu in honor of the first Beer KC Tomato Festival. Peterson is also planning a five-course tomato dinner at the Kurlbaum’s Heirloom Tomatoes farm on Aug. 21. (Tickets cost $110 per person including tax and gratuity; go to kurlbaumtomatoes.com for more information).

The Kurlbaums supply about 40 restaurants with heirlooms, including Jasper’s Restaurant, Michael Smith, Brio and Lidia’s Kansas City. The 65-acre farm grows 31 varieties — sort of like Baskin-Robbins, Liz Kurlbaum jokes — without irrigation or refrigeration, which can compromise flavor.

On a recent Wednesday morning, Liz Kurlbaum drove a John Deere utility vehicle up a steep hillside overlooking 3,000 green, bushy tomato plants surrounded by orange plastic netting and an electrified fence installed to keep hungry deer at bay.

“The plants look really good,” she says, “but the excessive amount of rain has adversely affected the crop.”

Last year’s yield was 18,000 pounds; Kurlbaum hopes to produce 6,000 pounds this year.

Many of the Kurlbaums’ tomatoes end up at Brio Tuscan Grille on the Country Club Plaza with executive chef T.J. Wright. At his annual tomato dinner last month, Wright crafted three cocktails using the fruit, including a bellini that combined sweet heirloom tomato juice with peach schnapps and prosecco. Wright also prepared bruschetta topped with tomato jam and bacon, chilled gazpacho, tomato-stuffed pork tenderloin and green tomato cake with a brown butter glaze.

“That’s really all you need to do,” Wright says, “because the tomato is the star of the show.”

Heirlooms are also headlining at Jasper’s Restaurant, where servers plate ruby-colored slices alongside fresh mozzarella that’s stretched and pulled right at the table. Mirabile says the “tableside mozzarella theater,” which costs $9.95 per person for a minimum of two people, packs his restaurant to capacity most nights during the season.

Mirabile also uses heirlooms in panzanella, a rustic salad made with hunks of sourdough bread, cucumber, red onion, Greek olives and fresh basil. The chef offered the seasonal menu item earlier than usual this year, in June, after he received a shipment of tomatoes from Powell Gardens.

Last year, the botanical garden in Kingsville, Mo., started growing tomatoes in high tunnels, or unheated greenhouses. Powell Gardens executive director Eric Tschanz says the high tunnels protected the crop on cool and soggy spring days.

Last month, during the height of production, Powell Gardens sent four tons of tomatoes per week to local chefs and Cosentino’s markets in Lee’s Summit, Blue Springs and Brookside. In addition to traditional red slicers, the farm produces three heirloom varieties: Persimmon, Brandywine and Cherokee Purple, a perennial favorite among local chefs.

Powell Gardens supplies heirlooms to about a dozen local restaurants, including Lidia’s Kansas City. The Freight House restaurant toasts tomatoes every summer with a five-course meal.

“This year we did two of them because they sell out so quickly,” says chef de cuisine Cody Hogan.

At the July 28 dinner, customers who braved the 100-degree heat wave were greeted with an orange Bloody Mary that tasted like tomatoes freshly plucked from the vine and still warm from the sun.

The meal was a feast for the senses: Picture sweet hunks of pickled green tomato atop sliced pork shoulder, bits of scarlet sundried tomato swimming in creamy risotto, and a thick, rare beef tenderloin steak topped with an equally thick slice of pinkish beefsteak tomato under a blanket of melted mozzarella.

It’s not easy to pull off a tomato dessert, but pastry chef Danica Pollard wowed the crowd with her cobbler, made with peaches and yellow heirloom tomatoes with a flavor and texture almost like apricots.

Hogan, an avid gardener, grows San Marzanos and cherry tomatoes at home. He roasts the smaller variety with breadcrumbs to concentrate their flavor, and uses the larger ones to make a raw pasta sauce.

“It could not be more easy,” Hogan says. “You cut up your best, most flavorful raw tomatoes, add olive oil, sprigs of basil, a clove or two of garlic. Let it sit for a few hours, then top with pasta and add a little cheese.”

At Charisse, chef and owner Jason Craine is converting tomato haters with rainbow-colored heirlooms from Roots, Fruits & Greens Farm in Easton, Kan. Craine proudly posts photos of his tomato shipments on Facebook, makes bright yellow pasta sauces from heirlooms and constructs towering pork belly BLTs. He has come a long way for someone who says he grew up thinking tomatoes were “flavorless, slimy blobs.”

Craine didn’t fall for tomatoes, which were once referred to as “love apples,” until a friend convinced him to top a burger with a slice of a variety called UglyRipe. The ribbed fruit was far from picture-perfect with its lopsided shape, but its flavors were kaleidoscopic.

“It was just amazing,” Craine says. “I fell in love immediately.”

This story was originally published August 11, 2015 at 4:00 AM with the headline "Treasured heirloom tomatoes are at their peak."