TomatoFest’s Ongoing Quest to Preserve Heirloom Tomatoes from Around the Globe

by Torrey Douglass

If the economy hadn’t stalled out like a neglected jalopy in the 1970s, then perhaps a young architectural illustrator in Boulder, Colorado, might not have been inspired to pick up sticks and pursue a new career in food and publishing on the central California Coast. But it did, and he did, and tomato lovers will be ever grateful.

Gary Ibsen relocated to Carmel, California in the early 70s specifically because it was a renowned culinary destination with world class restaurants. He had developed a passion for good food, partly inspired by the cookbook A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price (yes, that Vincent Price). The pair had sought out excellent eating around the globe, and the book gathers recipes from the best of those experiences. With inspiration from the Prices’ cookbook and his own love of culinary expertise, Gary started Adventures in Dining in 1974 to “celebrate and champion excellence in food, food production and food service.” For those first few years, he produced the majority of articles and photo- graphs himself, and under his leadership the quarterly won two Maggie Awards—essentially the Oscars of magazine publishing.

Gary is a man of many careers and has worked as an off-Broadway actor and singer, on a nuclear submarine while in the U.S. Navy, and as a grower of premium cannabis. He has owned two magazines, an art gallery in Connecticut, and a Cajun restaurant in Carmel. After selling Adventures in Dining in 1990 and finding himself again ready for a new pursuit, he decided to expand his personal love of backyard gardening into something more.

Years prior, a Portuguese farmer in Carmel Valley had opened Gary’s eyes to the mouth-watering magic of heirloom tomatoes by giving Gary a pair of seedlings. In those days, tomatoes were bred to endure travel to faraway supermarkets and were picked before reaching their full flavor potential for the same reason. For Gary, that first bite of an heirloom tomato was akin to biting into an oven-fresh chocolate chip cookie and realizing that for years he’d been consuming the cardboard box it came in rather than the real deal.

Tomato tasting at the annual Carmel TomatoFest

This marked the start of what would become a lifelong quest to find, propagate, and share heirloom tomatoes in all their variety, complexity, and beauty. As he searched out little-known varieties, Gary’s finds ran the spectrum of yellows and pinks, through reds and oranges, to purples and blacks. Some had fuzzy skins like a peach, and some were hollow like a red pepper. The flavors could be bold and acidic or layered and more subtle, with notes of chocolate, citrus, or tropical fruit. As news of his efforts spread, friends, relatives, and their friends and relatives began sending Gary their favorite varieties. Often they had been grown on family farms or in backyard gardens for generations.

As a fixture of the Central Coast food scene, Gary was delighted to share his expanding tomato harvest with his chef friends, watching their eyes light up, just like his had, with their first bite. He began selling the tomatoes to local restaurants and hosting backyard barbeques where friends could share tomato dishes and swap stories and ideas. Over time, those barbeques grew in size and renown, and once it was featured in Sunset magazine, their popularity soared. Soon the Tomato Fest became official, relocating to the Quail Lodge Resort in Carmel Valley and opening ticket sales to the public.

During its heyday, the Carmel Tomato Fest was an exuberant annual celebration of the tomato, hosting 3000 attendees, 70 top chefs, and 50 wineries. Over 350 varieties of tomatoes were available for tasting, as were the chefs’ creations. The event also featured wine tasting, garden demonstrations, a salsa showcase, a classic barbeque, and live music and dancing. The extravaganza lasted one day—a Sunday—so chefs could have time off from their restaurants. This buoyed the fun and festive vibe of the day. “It was a happy, love-filled event,” recalls Gary’s wife and partner, Dagma Lacey. “Everyone was so overjoyed to be there. It was an opportunity to be together, to see their friends.” Often chefs would ask to be located near their buddies, ensuring a generous helping of play along with all the work.

Dagma entered Gary’s life in 1998 when Tomato Fest was in full swing, and she fondly recalls how she was equally smitten with Gary as with his tomatoes. They courted from a distance while she remained in her hometown of Spokane, Washington, to finish raising her five teenagers, after which she relocated to Carmel to be with him full time.

The pair are a natural fit. Dagma’s predecessors were farmers from the Bohemia region of Germany until World War II. Dagma’s mother, Marianne, was 13 when Russian soldiers arrived at her school in May of 1940 and forced the students into a truck for transport to a labor camp. Marianne and four others leapt from the moving vehicle to escape, but only two survived. She traversed the Alps on foot with a friend, despite having been shot in the leg when crossing the Czech border, before ultimately arriving in Weiden, Germany. Years later, in 1955, she recon- nected with her parents and siblings with help from the Red Cross. After falling in love with an American soldier, she married in 1957, then relocated to Spokane, Washington to raise a family with him.

An orphan from New York state, Gary didn’t have much mothering in his youth, so his relationship with Marianne later in life was an added bonus to his courtship with Dagma. When Marianne’s sister from Germany sent her favorite tomato seeds to them, they named the variety “Marianne’s Peace” to honor Dagma’s mother and her life of courage, vitality, and resilience.

Gary and Julia Child chatting over breakfast

Another legendary woman is honored with a different tomato variety. Gary served on the founding board of the American Institute of Food and Wine with Julia Child for a time, where the two became friends. Julia was an honored guest at Tomato Fest 2000, and he credits her connection to the fest as one reason it became so popular. At Gary’s request, Julia agreed to have a tomato named after her. When he asked what said tomato should be like, she simply declared, “Tasty!” The tomato that bears her name was originally an unnamed family heirloom tomato sent to Gary in 1997. Part of his seed trials for four years before being released commercially in 2001, it is described as producing “4-inch, deep-pink, lightly-fluted, beefsteak fruits that have the kind of robust, smack-you-on-the-palate tomato flavors and firm, juicy flesh.” It is also the only instance of Julia permitting her name to be used for a product outside of her cookbooks.

In addition to the festival, Gary grew and sold his rare tomatoes to local restaurants and markets, including Whole Foods. At the start, the market ordered 100 pounds of tomatoes per week, but within the year it increased to one ton per week. This spike in interest did not go unnoticed by larger producers, and while Gary refused to sell tomatoes outside of their peak season, the bigger players had no qualms about growing in warmer climes and shipping tomatoes year-round. Finding themselves unable to compete with larger producers, but always up for a pivot, Gary and Dagma shifted the tomato business to primarily propagation and seed sales to the public, while still selling fruit to local restaurants, who knew a good thing when they had it. The annual TomatoFest event continued until 2009, at which point a cancer diagnosis forced Gary to retire from his leadership position. His son had moved to the Mendocino area years prior and thought the slower pace and wild beauty would be a good fit for Gary and Dagma. They moved up to Little River, continuing to farm tomatoes in Hollister while running the rest of their business from their new home. “We’ve been extremely happy with the people, environment, the small town,” shares Gary. “We get to live on a dirt road where the most precious commodity is quiet. We have super neighbors, [and] everyone looks out for everybody.”

These days TomatoFest is exclusively a seed business for heirloom tomatoes, selling their 650 varieties only online. All are organic, and they hail from around the globe: Italy, Ukraine, Spain, India, Russia, China, and all across the U.S. Every year Gary and Dagma shepherd their tomatoes through the seasons, first as seedlings in the greenhouse, then planting into the dirt, followed by harvesting the fruit, then processing and packaging the seeds. Harvest time in Hollister is a family affair, with their combined eight children and 17 grandchildren coming together to get it done. They return home with green hands, seeds for their customers, and a bounty of tomatoes they turn into sauce to give to friends. “We put our hands on everything,” muses Gary. “I touch every seed,” Dagma adds.

It is an undiluted joy to bite into a summer-ripe tomato. Exploring new and unusual varieties in order to spread that joy far and wide has been a central undertaking for much of Gary’s life. He and Dagma consider these seeds to be their legacy, one they must protect, expand, and, above all else, share. Over 200 charities benefit from their Tomato Seed Donation Program, with some seeds going into school and community gardens, and others propagated into plant starts to sell for raising funds. Ultimately, both the donation program and the seed-selling business exist for the same reason: to provide an organic, GMO-free, and nutritious food source to as many people as possible. The humble tomato, crowd-sourced, is available in an astounding scope of sizes, colors, and flavors to light up eyes, delight palates, and set imaginations free to explore new culinary possibilities.

Browse over 650 varieties of heirloom tomatoes at tomatofest.com.

Photos courtesy of TomatoFest®