Tomatillos – The Way To Go

By Ruth D’Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener The Wildlife Gardener loves growing unusual vegetables. Not just unusual varieties of old favourites (like Buffalo Horn tomatoes or Patty Pan squashes) but funny vegetables in their own right. Some were successes, some failures: Some asparagus peas looked beautiful and frilly, but tasted of… nothing. A lone greenhouse okra plant grew leggy and thin, producing one single Lady’s Finger. I made the world’s smallest bindi bhaji with it. Undaunted, and confident in my almost obsessive cultivation of tomatoes, I decided that tomatillos (Physalis philadelphica), like the tomato a member of the mighty Solanaceae family would be within my range of horticultural ability:

I chose some Eden Project purple tomatillo seeds. In March, I planted them in module trays alongside my tomatoes. Every one soon came up, which is more than could be said for the tomatoes. I potted the tomatillos on gradually in the greenhouse, but unwittingly abused them by forgetting to stake them so they toppled over, not watering them so they wilted, not feeding them regularly enough so they went yellow. When I remembered to tend them, the plants and fruits soon perked up sprightly and green with none of the blossom-end rot or splitting that tomatoes punish their abuser with. And today, I found one that was ripe enough to pick:

With its papery husk it looked like its nightshady cousin, the cape gooseberry. Tomatillos are the main ingredient in Mexican green sauces where they are pureed with chillis, onions, coriander and lime juice and served with meat or fish. I picked the only single ripe fruit; not enough to purée. Anyway, I wanted to eat this first one neat so I could gauge whether tomatillos would be worth growing again next year. So what did it taste like? Well, at first bite it had the crisp texture and slight citrus tang of a cape gooseberry. Then, an almost meaty tomatoey flavour that comes from naturally-occurring monosodium glutamate. The Japanese call this flavour ‘umami‘, a fifth addition to the four basic tastes of salt, sweet, bitter and sour. Umami gives Chinese and Japanese food its rich, savoury, lingering depth. Finally, there was a delightful hint of sweetness on the after-taste. Wow! Quite a taste sensation! I was expecting blandness and instead was rewarded with the agreeable experience of tasting something genuinely different. I can’t wait for the other fruits to ripen. So, next year, show me the way to tomatillo…