Fruits Tomatoes
A fruits tomato (フルーツトマト) is not some clever marketing name; rather, it reflects how truly special these tomatoes are: medium-sized, dense, and juicy, with an intense, concentrated sweetness and refreshing tanginess. Farmers who grow them liken their bright, fruity taste to the experience of eating strawberries, mandarin oranges, and watermelons. Yet, like all tomatoes, fruits tomatoes are suffused with umami; a quality that makes them culinarily very much like a vegetable. They are best enjoyed by themselves (without salt or any other type of condiment) when each bite produces a burst of rich tomatoey flavor. They are also excellent used fresh in cold savory dishes and desserts.
Fruits tomatoes came about by accident in 1970 on Shikoku Island when a typhoon broke a dam near the city of Kochi and flooded a tomato farm with seawater. The salty water reduced the tomatoes’ ability to absorb water, making them smaller, denser, and much sweeter. The sugar content of fruits tomatoes is 8 degrees on the BRIX scale and higher, with some as high as 12 degrees. This is double the sugar content of regular tomatoes.
Today, fruits tomatoes are grown across the Setouchi region, often on islands like Osaki Kamijima where sea salt was once produced because the former salt fields provide excellent growing conditions. Cultivation methods vary among farmers and include growing fewer tomatoes per vine, stressing them during their main growing season in winter by giving them as little water as possible, and concentrating the amount of salt in the soil. Farmers will tell you that it took them years to fine-tune their growing techniques, which they like to keep secret. Key challenges are getting the sweet-tangy-umami taste balance right while raising the sugar content and preventing the firm skin from splitting. A number of farmers have branded their fruits tomatoes, among these some of the most notable are the “Tokutani Tomato”, “Megumi Taiyo”, and “Amela”.
Although expensive, the fruits tomato is prized in Japan, where tomatoes are almost entirely eaten raw or used fresh in dishes. You can find them across Japan in supermarkets and featured on restaurant menus. These days they are cultivated in various parts of the country, with some farmers growing them in greenhouses, which makes them available not just in winter and spring, but throughout the year. Unlike regular tomatoes which are classified by size, fruits tomatoes are classified by their sugar content, which is typically written on the box.