Is that a strawberry INSIDE that tomato?
A RARE discovery of what appeared to be a strawberry inside a beefy tomato in a Great Island kitchen table made national news last week.
Nicholas Murphy was preparing a sandwich for himself when, while slicing into the now famous tomato, he noticed something unusual inside.
His wife Lila Murphy Zagaynova said: ‘He sliced off a little bit and it didn’t look like it should inside so he called me when he cut carefully into it so he called me over and having cut around it we saw a strawberry inside.’
Having researched the natural phenomenon, Lila said it is most likely a type of stuffing tomato.
‘It has very think skin and a fairly dry middle just like a stuffing tomato. We do grow our strawberries and tomatoes in the same greenhouse so if I didn’t know better about horticulture I would think there was some cross-pollinating going on.’
Neighbours, local residents and passersby have been stopping into the Murphy Zagaynova household to see the fruit christened a “strawmatoe” by Lila and Nicholas’s 13-year-old son Dmitry, who is going into Ramsgrange Community School from Horeswood NS. ‘ We could stuff it with rice and bake it, but we didn’t eat it yet because there are so many people wanting to take photos of it and see it.’
The family have cut into other tomatoes to see if they are similarly strawberry shaped inside, but have found no more “strawmatoes”. ‘ There are some still ripening so we’ll have to check them,’ Lila said.
The family plan to use the seeds to grow more unusual tomatoes in their greenshouse hoping that the model soil of County Wexford will somehow once again create a magical strawberry inside a perfectly round tomato.
Lila, from northern Russia, said she, Dmitry and Nicholas grow their own vegetables. ‘We grow a lot of fruit and vegetables but this is certainly the most unusual that we’ve grown.
Dmitry said: ‘ We feed ourselves from it [the greenhouse]. We grow cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes and now “straw-matoes”.’