The differences between pink, paste, cherry, beef and heirloom tomatoes, and which variety to choose for which recipe.
The Tatonia Editors··7 min read
At the market there are four or five different tomatoes, and they all carry the name "tomato." But the difference shows up in the middle of a recipe: the menemen turns watery, the salça refuses to thicken, the tomato in the salad falls flat. These are not flaws in the recipe; they are usually the result of choosing the wrong type. This article gathers, in one place, the tomato types most commonly seen in Turkish kitchens, which one is right for which recipe, and the critical notes on season, ripeness and storage.
There is no single "tomato," there are dozens of types
Botanically, the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is a fruit, but culturally we use it as a vegetable. About two thousand years ago it moved from the Andes to Mexico, and from there to Europe in the 16th century. Selective cultivation since then has produced thousands of varieties. Smithsonian Magazine recounts how the tomato was first considered an ornamental plant in Europe and was not eaten, and how the myth of its being poisonous was only dispelled in the 19th century.
Today the world counts more than ten thousand recorded varieties. Turkish markets show a small slice of this: pink, red paste, cherry, large fleshy, greenhouse, and a few heirloom types. Each one differs in juice, flesh, sugar-to-acid balance and aroma intensity. That is why a recipe behaves differently when one variety is swapped for another.
Main types in Turkish markets
Pink tomato (Antalya pembesi, Manavgat)
Thin-skinned, with a high sugar and low acid balance. Aroma is intense, water content balanced. The star of salads and mezes. Its flavour is most pronounced when eaten raw. Grown in greenhouses in winter, with a higher price than other red types. Fleshy but not too firm, so juice does not run when sliced.
Red paste tomato (San Marzano type, locally "pasta domates")
Oval, long, low in juice, dense in flesh. The seed cavity inside is small and the skin peels easily. Ideal for salça, sauce, preserves and long-cooked dishes. It releases its water quickly during cooking and concentrates its flavour. Antalya, Bursa and Çanakkale are among the leading regions for paste tomato cultivation.
Juicy summer tomato (round red)
The most common type at the market. Medium skin, medium juice, medium acidity. The jack-of-all-trades that works for everything, yet is not the best at any one task. Menemen, ezme, kavurma and most everyday dishes use this variety. In season (June to October) the aroma is genuinely good; out of season, the greenhouse version is often what makes a sucuklu domates feel "flat."
Cherry and cocktail tomato
Small, high in sugar, thin-skinned. When eaten raw they burst and release aroma. Hold their form in grills, oven dishes and short sautés. Unlike the larger types, they do not release juice immediately under long cooking; they stay whole and caramelise. A tried-and-true choice in salads, pasta and on the breakfast plate.
Beef (large fleshy) and heirloom
A single slice big enough to cover a hamburger bun. Low water, high flesh, wide seed cavity. Used in sandwiches and slice services. Heirloom varieties are colourful (yellow, orange, purple, green) and generally not hybrid. In Türkiye they appear in Aegean and Mediterranean village markets; flavourful but fragile.
Matching recipe and tomato
Which one is right for which recipe? A short guide:
Recipe
Recommended type
Why
Salad, meze, breakfast plate
Pink or local summer
Aroma and sweetness up front
Menemen, sucuklu eggs, omelette
Summer or paste
Plenty of juice, egg sets to consistency
Soup and sauce
Paste
Low water, dense flesh, quick to thicken
Pilav (with chickpea, lentil)
Paste or grated summer
Liquid pulled into the grain
Grill, oven, skewer
Cherry or cocktail
Does not burst, caramelises
Sandwich
Beef or thick-cut pink
Low juice, the bread stays dry
Kavurma, long-cooked stew
Paste
Deepens as it melts into the liquid
Examples of recipes on Tatonia written with this principle: menemen shines with in-season tomato; ezogelin çorbası holds its body well with paste; domates çorbası freshly cooked benefits from paste releasing its juice, while summer tomato thins it out.
Season and ripeness
The aroma problem in winter greenhouse tomato is usually not the variety, but the time of picking. A tomato picked unripe turns red from the outside through ethylene gas during transport, but the sugar-to-acid balance and the aroma molecules (linalool, geranial, hexanal) inside have not fully developed. Red on the outside, flat on the inside. Serious Eats (Kenji López-Alt) sharpens this distinction with the phrase "a tomato that snapped at the stem": if the stem is still attached, it ripened on the plant.
When choosing tomato at the market:
The stem connection should be green and fresh; a tomato with a dry stem was picked too early.
It should give a little when pressed gently. Stone-hard means unripe; mushy looseness is close to spoilage.
A whiff of earthy, green stem aroma signals ripeness; no smell at all usually means flat flavour.
A matte red is generally tastier than a glossy shine. Sometimes the gloss is from a wax coating.
The fridge question: does cold ruin tomato?
Yes, to a large extent. Research from the University of Florida (Tieman et al., 2016, PNAS) showed that a tomato stored below 12°C irreversibly loses its aroma enzymes. For that reason a ripe tomato bought from the market belongs not in the fridge but on the counter, stem-side down. If you leave the stem side up, air enters from there and softens the inside quickly.
There are exceptions: a cut tomato, a very ripe one that will not be eaten in a few days, or hot summer conditions where it cannot sit out. In those cases keep it cold, but do not use it without 30 to 60 minutes at room temperature before eating. A cold tomato tastes flat; a warmed-up tomato regains its aroma.
Cooking difference: raw vs cooked lycopene
A raw tomato is higher in vitamin C and folic acid; a cooked tomato has the bioavailability of antioxidants such as lycopene increased 2 to 4 times. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health summarises that lycopene is absorbed more efficiently when cooked with fat. So the butter in menemen, the olive oil in ezme, and the oil in sauce serve not only flavour but also absorption.
In practice: eat raw tomato for its taste; treat cooked tomato as both flavour and nutrition. The two are not alternatives to each other but complementary approaches.
Small practical notes
To peel a tomato easily, make a cross-shaped cut at the top, dip in boiling water for 20 to 30 seconds, then move to iced water. The skin separates on its own.
Removing the seeds in a sauce recipe concentrates flavour; but the seed-surrounding jelly also carries acidity and umami, so do not strip it entirely.
The skin of a frozen tomato slips off under tap water in an instant. Grating excess in-season tomato and freezing it in bags is the most practical winter solution.
Paste tomato is denser in flesh; if you use half the measure in place of summer tomato, the recipe balance is not disturbed.
Very ripe but unspoiled tomatoes are the best for sauce and soup. A ripeness that no longer suits a salad is at the right level for cooking consistency.