Cuore di Bue Tomatoes

Cuore di Bue Tomatoes

One of my new-to-me plant varieties this year has been the Cuore di Bue Tomato, a paste/sauce variety. The insides are dense, with oxheart-style lobes, and have very few seeds.

As with any plant variety you attempt to grow, the fruit is a result of the varietal and the weather that year. Our extremely warm spring and cooler summer this year seemed to please the Cuore di Bues, as the plants grew huge and fruited heavily, though they took their sweet time fruiting and are only now slowly ripening.

Green Cuore di Bue Tomato
Some unripe Cuore di Bue tomatoes. The one on the left displays some cracking.

My favorite sauce tomato, the San Marzano, also grows well in our Mediterranean climate. While I love my San Marzanos, I find the flesh of the Cuore di Bue to be less mealy, the tomatoes bigger, and they do not suffer blossom end rot early in the season like San Marzanos. The Cuore di Bue are susceptible to some mild cracking, which I definitely prefer over rot.

The flesh is meaty, almost like tender pork

Perhaps the best part about the Cuore di Bue is the shape of the tomatoes. They resemble coin purses, or, when double-lobed, perhaps Testicoli di Bue would be a more appropriate name?

Double-lobed Cuore di Bue Tomato
Testicoli di Bue, LOL.

Childish humor aside, I think for next year, I will grow some Cuore di Bue side-by-side with San Marzano to get a true comparison of the plants, from seed to fruit.

I purchased my Cuore di Bue seeds from Territorial Seed Company.



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