We’ve been growing a selection of 20ish tomato varieties out of 50+ variety collection in the last 10+ years.
Taste is something few people can objectively agree on. Also culture, habit, previous experience hugely influences taste preferences.
Our bar for what we call “salad tomato” is rather high, in fact in my nearly half a century of living on this good Earth, the only people I’ve met with higher standards for tomatoes were my grandparents.
So I can recommend varieties, even if some of the ones we grow are unnamed, coming from long gone babushkas in villages around the country. But all must consider that any recommendation is a reflection of personal preference and not some universal scale of quality.
One other thing that must be mentioned is that soil, sun, temps and most importantly - water, have enormous influence on taste. In our garden we do not fertilize and water very sparingly, which never results in watery, bland, tasteless fruit, unless the variety is super shit ofc.
Here’s a list of several named varieties, which we prefer in a salad.
- Golden Medal
- Black Pineapple
- Cherokee Green and Purple
- Yellow Dusya
- White and Black Oxheart
- Calaman’s Pink
Usually we use mostly large size pink and red tomatoes but none of those are “named” varieties, they are named after the person we got the seeds from. We have 15ish varieties of those; they don’t yield large numbers but 800-1000 g per tomato is common, esp the first two clusters.
Here’s a short video of me slicing one of those to show the structure;
Ofc we grow 10+ varieties of cherry tomatoes on the side + 5ish more of paste tomato like San Marzano, Rio Grande, Rio Fuego, Speckled Roman and a few more unnamed ones. But the cherries we consider snacking tomatoes and usually most end up being eaten by all the kids around here + all the guests.
Let me know if I can be of any further help.