Are fresh tomatoes good year-round?
It depends. While we can buy fresh tomatoes year-round, the local growing season is July to October; the rest of the time most fresh tomatoes are tasteless. In the winter your best choices are plum (also called “Roma”) tomatoes for oven-roasting or making sauces, and cherry tomatoes for pan cooking and salads. Look for cherry tomatoes still on the vine and buy ones that are firm and round. When cooking with tomatoes, canned imported San Marzanos can be a happy alternative or even a superior choice to a tasteless mid-winter fresh tomato (see our article about San Marzano tomatoes).
