Recently in a restaurant I noticed some interesting tomatoes on the counter. The owner told me (wrote on paper) that they are called tomate cugbilero (their spelling). Others have told me that they are tomate bola. Every round tomato her is a bola it seems.
Seeing my interest the owner gave me three. While processing the seeds I tasted of course and they are the best I have had since I arrived here. After processing and drying the seeds the germination tests resulted in a 90% germination rate after only 4 days.
I found a photo of something similar, an Italian Pomodoro Costoluto Genovese, an open pollinated heirloom variety. These were sold by a local out of the back of his truck. If you see any of these or other unusual varieties of vegetables I would like to collect seeds and would be willing to trade seeds for other seeds or heirloom veggies for seed extraction.
My suggested book read for this week is: Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel, also available in oral format.