A mean wind and rain whipped through the New Amsterdam Market at the South Street Seaport on Aug. 22, shaking stands and sending unanchored objects flying. But Rachel Bowie and Matt Dorville, who had come together from Brooklyn, seemed unaware of the elements raging around them.

Using their plastic cocktail forks, they speared slices of a tomato called the Black Prince from their cardboard plates, popped them in their mouths, and then considered its pleasures.

“It’s the appearance combined with the flavor,” Bowie said, searching to explain its appeal. “It’s like it’s marinated in something.”

“There’s almost an eggplant base to it,” Dorville observed.

And so went the conversations last month at the second annual Tomato Tasting Fest.

By the end of the afternoon, nearly 200 people had wended their way along the tomato displays, savoring the delights of 15 varieties, with names such as Nebraska Wedding and Cherokee Purple. Tomatoes that were bright orange and deep pink and dark purple, dainty globes that measured less than an inch across and others robust, weighing in at almost a pound.

The tasters—from tomato epicures to novices who had never ventured beyond a beefsteak—all agreed that the variety of tomatoes at the tasting was “amazing.”

New School student Josie Ngo, whose friend had bought her a ticket to the event ($20, including tastes of tomato juice, tomato salad, tomato sauces and a tomato cocktail) admitted that her acquaintanceship with tomatoes was limited.

“I buy really boring tomatoes,” she confessed, “and they all taste the same, like iceberg lettuce.” After sampling several varieties, however, she was starting to see things differently. “I never thought of tomatoes this way,” she said.

For many of the tasters, the tomato was already a food that spoke to them.

Miriam Goler, who works as a horticulturalist, had been canning tomatoes just the night before, when she happened to call a friend who told her about the event. She came with her boyfriend, Mark Stonehill, an instructor at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and with her mother.

Goler and Stonehill are tomato growers in their own right, having planted four varieties. They recently harvested two cherry tomatoes.
“I really liked the German Striped,” Goler  said. “It was a little more acidic, a stronger flavor. Really delicious.”

Rebecca Rendsberg, a high school teacher, has been buying various varieties of tomatoes in greenmarkets around the city this summer (a tomato-based salad was on her menu for that night). Her husband David liked the Oxheart the best. “It was a little tangy and had a little bit of a bite to it,” he said.

Rebecca also raved about the golden-hued Pineapple variety. “I can’t get over it,” she said. “It was a taste I’ve never had before. Sort of sweet but a little fruity.”   

At the gate, a Food Systems Network volunteer handed out a two-page guide with descriptions of each of the tomatoes being offered, as well as the characteristics of a desirable tomato. A “good” tomato, it noted, is “sweet, tart (high sugar, high acid) with finely balanced flavor” while an “excellent” tomato is “scarcely equaled in texture and richness of flavor; distinctive, complex and mouthwatering.”

The public’s growing interest in tomatoes, said Hilary Baum, a founder of Food Systems Network NYC, an organization whose goal is to help bring fresh food to people of all income levels and to promote local farming, has been furthered in the last 10 years by the boom in farmers’ markets in the city, which offer different varieties every new season.

“Tomatoes epitomize the summer,” Baum said. “And for people who love food, they really sometimes seem like total nirvana.”

One taster, a slice of German Striped on her plate,  couldn’t have agreed more. “If you have only eaten tomatoes from the supermarket,” she said, “then you haven’t lived!”