Behind the Knife - tools, food, and the secret lives of chefs

The worst fate a tomato has met because of my culinary ineptitude is its slices were horrificly uneven

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For the life of me, I am incapable of dicing a tomato. I end up with mush every time I try to dice tomatoes for tacos, salad, anything. Now, I just buy mini tomatoes and cut them in half. (cheating!)

I’m sorry to say, squashed.

Bad for the tomato – being put in my homemade habanero vodka bloody mary – but good for me

The worst tomato experience with me was when I tried to grill them…yow!

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These guys make great tools, love my knife

left unused and rotten

I tried to make spaghetti sauce in a crock pot with fresh tomatoes. It turned out so acidic I nearly died of heartburn. I know now to add some sugar.

The worst thing I’ve ever done is let a beautiful farmer’s market tomato go bad because I didn’t use it soon enough.

i tried stuffing them not a good experience thanks

Worst fate would have to be being involved in a nasty salsa incident circa 1996…it’s too painful to go into details about

WHAT YOU MEAN…TOMATO KNIFE??

The worst fate was being turned into total mush by a bad knife.

I don’t eat raw tomatoes, except in salsa, and its much more convenient for me to buy a jar that I know is of consistent quality than to pick out nice ripe tomatoes, onion, peppers, etc. Of course having just started culinary school, we recently learned how to concasse a tomato, and I’m pretty sure that ranks as the worst thing I’ve ever done to one. My lab partner accidentally left the tomatoes in the hot water too long, so they turned to mush. I had a pile of very mushy chopped up tomato on my cutting board when I was done. I wouldn’t ever serve anything like that to anyone. On the other hand, the best thing I ever did to a tomato was when I worked at a deli years ago. When we cut tomatoes everyone else grabbed a knife (difficult because we didn’t have any serrated knives). I took the easy way and put them on the meat slicer. I set the blade to about 1/8 “ and got consistent perfect slices for sandwiches every time. Plus I was able to slice a full tray of tomatoes in less time than anyone else could slice 3. Cleanup was a bit of a pain since tomato juice and seeds were thrown against the wall at high velocity, but I was still done long before anyone else.

The worst thing that I’ve done to a tomato was when I was preparing a cheese and veggie platter for some guests. I didn’t realize that the knife was so dull until I started slicing the tomato and all I got was mangled, mushy slices.

The worst thing I ever did to a tomato was try to cut it with a butter knife. I was young, first place, having friends over for taco night, know famously known as the great tomato massacre (referencing Alice’s restaurant LOL)

One day I was trying to make homemade chili. The tomato I was cutting slipped off the board and fell on the floor. My dog ate it up before I could do anything. I guess he confused it for a T-Bone!

None really. The worse for me is when I don’t get around to using the tomatoes I’ve bought, and they get grainy and mushy. At that point, they’re just good for sauce.

The worst fate of a tomato in my life was being eaten by the deer before it even had a chance to ripen. Alas! Poor tomato! To have never known the kiss of olive oil, the tingle of salt…

The worst tomato experience with me was when I tried to grill them

I tried to make homemade tomato soup once. It smelled really good, but looked and tasted like burnt tomato puree!

It was so mashed up that it had to just go into the waste bin.

It became spaghetti sauce.
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I had seen skinned tomatoes, I knew where the paring knife was so I attempted and got a mushy mess. I have now learned that you use the dull side of a knife to rub the skin this gently bruisng it and allowing you to slip the skin off.

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The worst fate a tomato’s life due to my culinary ineptitude is that I was canning tomato’s and I didn’t jar them properly and the lids popped, so they all rotted. There were about 30 jars. :(

Being smooshed in the bottom of a bag of groceries.

Brutally squashed with a dull knife. Juice went everywhere.

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Worst fate is mold and rot from being forgotten.

I turned it in to a mashed tomato.

I’ve squeezed a tomato too hard, causing it to burst and make a mess all over my kitchen counter.

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I always seem to squish them when I cut them…BLTs don’t turn out well unless you have a good knife!

Uneven slices. I’d love to get thin, nicely uniform slices even from tomatoes like Brandywines, but I seem to always get some that are way thicker than others. They’re still delicious, but—unevenly sliced

I tried to slice very ripe tomatoes in my food processor and ended up with salsa!

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I’ve ended up with mashed instead of diced tomatoes. Fine for sauce, not so great for salad…

Didn’t pick them from the garden and they all rotted on the vine

Well, while it wasn’t exactly a form of culinary ineptitude, what we did do this one time was construct a 10-foot air cannon that was designed to lob oranges a very long distance.

Trouble is that during testing, we ran out of oranges and had to find an alternate for of ammo, which, as you might have guessed, turned out to be a bowl of ripe Roma Tomatoes.

Turns out they splat INCREDIBLY good, so we ended using them instead of oranges. Only, the trouble was that we weren’t very good at aiming, and accidentally launched one into a neighbor’s window and it splatted itself all over the window and the back of their wall.

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Splat goes the tomato when cutting with my dull knives! Boy I sure need a good tomato cutting tool or a really sharp knife.

Everytime I try to slice a tomato the insides run out and the outside smushes. Its just a big mess!

My tomato ruination resulted from growing heirloom tomatoes that varied in color (yellow to red), I could never tell if they were ripe enough by judging the color and I ended up with many split and fallen tomatoes. They tasted awesome but never presented well.

I have yet to slice a tomato where the slices come out even and in one piece.

Worst tomato experience? Can you say smashed tomatoes? Not pretty. ;-)

exploding tomato jam

squashed to the point of oblivion

Becoming bloody from me cutting my finger while slicing them :)

The worst fate a tomato has suffered as I tried to cut them is that they were smushed to death.

I’ve never even heard of a tomato knife until now! I don’t think I cut my tomatoes that poorly but they don’t come out in perfect evenly cut slices so maybe this knife will help!

I put it into the blender and forgot to put the top on before I started it.

Mostly I cut slices that or too big or uneven, but I have had occasions where I actually smooshed the tomato with my lack of cutting skill (or a crummy knife). Just wanted to let you know this is is sharp contest (in the spirit of your “cutting edge” comment).

The worst that has happened to a tomato is going bad in the refrigerator. Thanks.

Worst fate a tomato meat was when I was still in the navy trying to cut one up with my bachelor culinary set LOL (plastic knife) to say the least it looked more like a massacre than a nice and neat cut tomato.

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Keith

Mine always come out so mushy it is hard to see what it really is

I can’t dice a tomato for the life of me.

Yeah, I’ve had some be mushy if I didnt have a good knife

I’ve never been able to slice a tomato without it looking ridiculous.

I try to slice the stem “butts” off tomatoes before they go in my salads, and this tends to result in some butchered little fruits when I purchase cherry tomatoes.

Tomatoes that are little bit too ripe often get squished into a gooey mess on my cutting board

It suffered the super smoosh as I like to call it.

Hmm, I remember a salad with gorgeous heirloom tomatoes and fresh cukes that I then poured a bottled dressing over. Before realizing the dressing had gone bad and ruined the salad.

It’s fate was the garbage can cause I smooshed it to much

I threw one out the back door because it squirted and stained my shirt!

several I have known have just turned to mush…….dull knife and clumsy me…..

Threw quite a few in the blender to make some sauce.

Worst fate? You know what happens when you throw a tomato at a wall and it splatters into a million messy gooey pieces? Imagine that minus the wall. ;)

I have a habit of squeezing the poor tomato and making a big mess. I need this knife.

Okay now don’t laugh.. When I was in college I was making some dish and needed to cut some tomatoes. Well, normally I would grab my tomato knife but this was college so I was left with what I had. Dull butter knife type thing that was my roommates. It kinda looked like the steak knifes at Outback. At first it wouldn’t even cut the skin and I’m sure the tomatoes were screaming. When it did finally cut into them it was horrid… But I cut even more this way. One jumped away from the knife and SPLAT on the floor. The rest were mangled and mush but into the dish they went. RIP poor tomatoes

The worst fate a tomato has suffered was getting terribly smooshed beause my knife was so dull. It took me three tries to slice it and then the slices were very uneven and unappealing.

uh, it ended up bloody when the knife I had cut not only the tomato but my finger!
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Ive cut tomatos so unevenly and squished quite a few in my day. :(

when I was working my buddy at work bit into a bad one and then smashed against a tree does that count

I tried making bruschetta with unripe tomatoes – it was horrible.

I think the worst thing I did recently was I was chopping the ends of a tomato, and I always do it over by the trash disposal in the sink so that when the juice runs out of it I don’t make too much of a mess. However as I was chopping it up it slipped from my hand and ended up down the disposal and left juice all up me as it went down!

I would really love to win this thank you for the chance fancyfeet45@earthlink.net

Hmm, I am bad about leaving them in the fridge too long and then they get a little frozen and flavorless but I still try to use them…. dummy me

I was cuttting tomatoes and I smooshed half and the other half was cut and the seeds squirted out because I used a dull knife

I used a dull knife and pretty much just mashed it. I tried all kinds of things: sawing, pushing the tip in, etc. Nada. Ate a smushed tomato. Boo.