It has hints of lemon-lime flavor and is excellent eaten raw!
Origin
It might look like something from a Pixar movie, but this type of tomato is all natural. Over the years, people have tried to introduce new types of tomatoes from America, and some truly fascinating hybrids have arisen. This includes zebra tomatoes, which can come in green, red and black. Many believe they have very historic roots, but actually they were only created in the 1980s by a grower who had been working for a while on different types of tomatoes in the hopes of hitting on a more resistant variety. After numerous experiments on when and how to obtain them, he finally landed on the variety he was looking for. Green zebra tomatoes are round, small to medium sized and grow in bunches. At the start, they are evenly colored, but as they ripen, light green stripes appear which eventually become bright yellow. And while the inside doesn’t change color, — it stays bright green — the flavor changes from acidic to sweet and aromatic.
In the kitchen
These tomatoes have a sweet but slightly tart aroma, with an even, firm pulp — features that make them perfect for frying. They’re used in the classic American recipe for “fried green tomatoes” and their consistency also makes them suitable for salads and cold dishes. They’re often used as an ingredient in gourmet cuisine because of their marvelous color and the visual impact they create, especially when paired with other colored tomatoes like yellow cherry tomatoes or Crimea black tomatoes.
Did you know that?
Why were green tomatoes thought to be poisonous? Tomatoes belong to the belladonna or deadly nightshade family, which means they can contain toxic substances. In unripe tomatoes, the leaves and stem of the plant contain solanine, a natural poison that can cause nausea and headaches if consumed in large quantities. But solanine is also what protects the plant from parasites, bacteria and mold. Tomatoes should therefore always be eaten when well ripened and without the green base of the stem. But of course the exceptions are green tomato varieties like the green zebra or green cherry tomatoes.
