Looking to make a Persian Tomato/Cucumber salad. Should I use out of season tomatoes, could I used canned? https://food52.com/recipes/59029-beef-kofte

Thanks everyone. I will aim for the grape tomatoes. This has been quite helpful and illustrative.

I agree. Hothouse grown cherry or grape tomatoes will have the best flavor this time of year both because of the shipping issues mentioned by others (I live in VA and there are a couple of places nearby that grown cherry toms indoors all year, and similar was true when I lived in Chicago). A second reason they are the best option is because all of the glutamates, AKA flavor, are in the skins and seeds of tomatoes, a much greater ratio in the smaller fruit and no mealy off season flesh. They will certainly have a different texture than an heirloom in august... but generally even in summer I prefer to eat perfect tomatoes by themselves and use cherry toms in my salads.

Maybe try grape tomatoes? They seem to me consistently better taste than many of the shipped "cardboard" tomatoes. I also think the Kumatoes a good idea per suggestion above.

Growing up we used to eat home grown and canned tomatoes as a salad. Just plopped whole on lettuce and served with a creamy dressing. Not bad and certainly better than anything available in stores that long ago. But I don't think you would want to cut them and mix them into other ingredients.

Tomatoes are always in season someplace. Like Mexico where most supermarket tomatoes are coming from right now. However, they are picked green and ripened with gas. You might want to leave them out a couple more days to ripen further. Even so they are much better than trying to use canned for such a salad.

If you're really determined to make a tomato and cucumber salad, I suggest using Kumato tomatoes...read about them here:
https://au.be.yahoo.com/food/a/15191268/ten-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-kumato/#page1

typically these salads use fresh tomatoes. Canned tomatoes are already a cooked product. They will not take you where you want to go in this recipe.

I would choose a different salad until tomato season.

Canned tomatoes and fresh tomatoes are nothing alike. I would never use canned for fresh, and never in a salad. I only use canned for cooked and stewed foods, and even then I wish I had fresh. The only good 'canned' tomato is one that's home-preserved.

You could use canned tomatoes. The texture will be softer but the flavor should be fine.