The true story of Carnica
A curious traveler and lover of true tomato varieties was climbing in the Italian mountains, in the valleys of the Northern Alps. It was a dazzlingly beautiful, sunny autumn day, such a time in Italy is the best time to go down to the mountain valleys and admire the views. The traveler approached an old stone Italian farmhouse, with a dilapidated low, small fence. When you travel in the mountains, you are always curious, "who lives here or does anyone else still live here", in such a place... there were not many plants around the house, only an old garden, which had already withered, several types of vegetables and a few old large olive trees.. , which gave the farmhouse some shade from the sun's rays. The traveler was curious about everything, from the shutters, the doors to the tiled roof..., and here the traveler's eyes stopped, having noticed a strange plant on the high tiled roof, with a huge bunch of red fruits, like large grapes.. it was a tomato! Its length was about 7 meters.. The traveler became curious about what kind of tomato plant grows in the mountains and is so stretched out, and full of large fruit bunches.., it looked like an ordinary creeper with many red oblong berries..
The mountain sun baked without mercy, the man already wanted to enter the farmstead yard and at that moment the owner of the house slipped out of the house. The owner of the farmstead waved his hand to the traveler, you should come in for a drink of water, from an endless mountain well, from a small old tap-like a fountain water gushed out.. The traveler smiled, greeted the owner and went to the small water fountain in the yard. After drinking the cold water, the man immediately asked in German about the "climbing" tomato on the wall of the house and waved his hand at it.. Together they approached the tomato, which was covered with beautiful large bunches of fruit..., the owner picked a couple of tomatoes and gave them to the traveler.. Having taken the fruit, he immediately put one in his pocket, and the other he bit into with relish, it was a sweet, sweet large berry, which had the taste of warm strawberries.., because the fruits were warm in the sun. It was a wonderful experience for the traveler that day, which crowned the whole purpose of this trip. After saying goodbye, the traveler headed down the valley path.., rocks and gray olive trees, bleached by the sun's rays, stretch across the valley.
Thus, the Carnica variety was discovered and brought to Germany - from the historical-geographical region of Carnia in northeastern Italy's Friuli region. This name was given to the variety because of the name of the region. Since the resulting tomato was the heritage of an Italian family, which was grown on that mountain farm in the Carnia region - for more than 50 years on an Italian family-farm, several relatives together.. So now we know why the Germans "appropriated" this historical variety, because the traveler was a German-speaking person, who received that only fruit from an Italian family.