‘Tis the season when the overwhelming but quite satisfying variety of tomatoes is at its greatest. A most scientific study (i.e. a walk among mercato vegetable stalls, mental count) revealed 19 different types this week at the Testaccio market in Rome, roughly divided into four categories: those for sauce, for salads, the green types, and the cluster type.

Some of the types at the market this week? San Marzano, cigliegino, Siciliane, pachino, verdi, Tondino, da riso, vesuviane, cuore di bue o Albenga, Marmande, Castelfiorentino, invernali, Canestrino, Costoluto, Sorrento, and Belmonte.

A request at any one of the better stocked stalls will result in a 15 minute long disquisition on the relative merits of the various types available, superiority of the local variety as the highest expression of tomato-ness possible, appropriate recipes for each respectively, inquiries as to your culinary (but not only) intentions and desires, etc., with the other market goers chiming in with comments, recipes, and counter-arguments of their own.

One wonders what people possibly ate before it was introduced here in 1596.