Santorini Cherry Tomatoes | Tomatokeftedes

Santorini’s Cherry Tomatoes are Noted for Their Sweetness:

Tomato Fritters – Travelsignposts

In addition to its fava beans, the Santorini cherry tomato is another of the island’s local produce that has been submitted to the EU for PDO certification. The Santorini cherry tomatoes take a special place on the island’s food products and each year there is an international conference dedicated to the Santorini tomato.

About the Santorini Cherry Tomato

Santorini’s cherry tomatoes are noted for their sugar content and flavour. This it seems is due to Santorini’s special volcanic soil. Although the tomato is juicy, it is more thick skinned than the regular cherry tomatoes and for this reason they are often made into tomato paste or used in cooking.

Before the earthquake of 1956, there were 13 factories on Santorini producing their special tomato paste. However, after the earthquake, the tomato yields dropped and it became non-profitable to cultivate these cherry tomatoes. In the last few years however, there have been efforts to re-cultivate the Santorini tomato and the product is now gaining more recognition. I bought some of these cherry tomatoes to use in our cheese sandwich and there were very sweet.

Tomatokeftedes

One of the traditional dishes in Santorini is its Tomatokeftedes. The restaurant we dined at uses cherry tomatoes in their tomato fritters and the sweetness of the tomato comes through in the Tomatokeftedes. We had the tomato fritters with some refreshing salad and they were delicious.