1 bunch soup vegetables, butter, 1.5 kg fresh, ripe, peeled tomatoes, 1 l broth, salt, sugar, black pepper; 50 g rice pudding, garlic, 1/2 cup cream; 1 tbsp green peppercorns.
Sauté the cleaned, finely chopped soup vegetables and chopped garlic in the butter. Add the peeled and seeded tomatoes, sauté, salt, sprinkle with a pinch of sugar and pour in the stock. Also tip the rice into the pot and simmer gently for three quarters of an hour. Puree, stir in the cream, season to taste. Just before serving, scatter the green peppercorns on the plates. If you want the soup to be more substantial, sprinkle toasted white bread cubes on top.
Rice tomatoes and Andean horns from northern Hesse
<x>.N</x>Tomatoes in such variety met with so much interest, grower Papenfuss tells us, that he didn't have to deliver anywhere. Rather, people picked up everything themselves. That is also the easiest, because there is no computer, fax machine or mobile phone, so the nursery is only available at the specified times.
That the tomatoes - Hans Papenfuss has 25 varieties to offer - grow under glass was lucky this summer. "Without greenhouses I would have harvested nothing, because the late blight has struck brutally". In between it was also very hot, which is not the best thing for tomatoes (that's how tomatoes are called in Austria). They also did not like strong sunlight, but rather a moderate climate. In their American homeland, the nightshade plants thrived at the edge of the forest under tall trees and meandered upwards in their branches.
Of the wild tomatoes ("as big as blueberries and super great tasting"), Papenfuss tells us that they don't like a lot of heat, but it has to be rain-free. "25 degrees and really dry air are ideal".
"Beim Papenfuss da reifen / Tomaten mit goldnen Streifen", so lau his advertising slogan, emphasizes the tomato gardener. The tomato with the golden stripes is called Tigerella and is the tastiest variety of all. It tastes fruity and sour, really tomatoey; not mild, but hearty and refreshing," Papenfuss enthuses. That's why he keeps it on his bedside table. There, where other people have a glass of water. Otherwise he likes the "Golden Queen" best. Because it tastes wonderfully fruity and sweet. The expert likes tomatoes "best pure and without anything".
For twenty years, gardener Papenfuss has been dealing with golden apples (or pomodori, as the Italians say). Not with hybrids, but only with seed-proof varieties that can be propagated further. Hybrids, he says, are durable, have nice, uniform fruit, but don't taste good. "My varieties are not so uniform, but taste super". By the way, there are no genetically modified varieties in Germany yet.
Papenfuss sticks to the old, seed-stable tomatoes, "the best ones come from Russia". Oxheart, for example, and the "black Russian", which is very popular right now, he said. This flesh tomato is "highly good in taste".
As a counterpart, Papenfuss draws the white variety Beauty Blanche, which comes from France. Very mild and sweet in taste and "really white" in appearance, this beef tomato is said to be. "Ideal for people who don't tolerate fruit acid well".
The firm-fleshed "Andenhorn" ("looks like a dwarf cone cap") is good for making sauce from. Then there are two varieties of the very tasty wild tomatoes. And a novelty, the rice tomato. This refers to a strongly subdivided flesh tomato. Each individual chamber has developed as a partial fruit, which can be broken off and eaten without the rest of the fruit running out. "Ideal for on the go, especially if you want to feed it to small children.
Gartnernerei Am Mühlenberg
Hans Papenfuss
<x>.N</x>Fasanenweg 1
35104 Lichtenfels-Sachsenberg (between Korbach and Frankenberg, Oberhessen)
Phone: 06454-1427
Opening hours: Mon-Fri from 5pm, Sat from 12pm
from Waldemar Thomas