Chefs rave about them, backyard gardeners brag about them, and shoppers fill bags with them at the farmers market.

They all know nothing compares to a fresh, ripe tomato.

For local chef Kathleen Tracy, owner with Peter Courtney of Movable Feast, 5741 E. 71st St., tomatoes are a key summertime ingredient. Tracy and Courtney grow them — along with herbs and other fresh produce — at their Northside home.

“I grew up growing tomatoes,” said Tracy. “They’re just delicious.”

In fact, tomatoes are so much a part of Hoosier tradition that the Indiana State Fair has made 2009 the Year of Tomatoes presented by Red Gold at this year’s event Aug. 7-23.

In celebration of this year’s theme, Taste asked Tracy and Courtney to share recipes that embrace tomatoes.

It wasn’t a difficult task for Tracy, who often uses tomatoes purchased at farmers markets, as well as those grown at home, in a variety of dishes at Movable Feast. She created several tomato-focused recipes, including a tomato tart and a quick and easy gazpacho, along with a roasted tomato dish — pomadori al Forno with sauteed halibut.

“All of them are really simple dishes,” said Tracy.

That fresh, simple flavor is what people find so appealing about tomatoes, said Greenwood-based writer and tomato aficionado Brian Smith.

Smith, who grew up in Franklin, said he didn’t taste a really flavorful tomato until he was 13.

“The only tomato I’d ever had was the kind you get on a Dairy Queen hamburger,” he said.

That is, until his family decided one summer to have a garden. He still remembers the first tomato of the season.

“It was just one of those transcendental moments for me,” said Smith. “I just couldn’t believe they had so much flavor.”

After living for years in apartments, he began growing tomatoes in his own backyard garden in 1995, he said, setting out as many as two dozen plants a season.

“I’ve had to cut back a bit,” said Smith, who is now tending to a dozen plants, mostly heirloom varieties. “It just got out of hand.”

While most varieties can be used interchangeably in recipes, some types prove particularly flavorful.

Brandywine is Smith’s all-time favorite heirloom variety, he said. For an easy, low-maintenance hybrid, he suggests Better Boy.

For those wanting a bit of local flavor, there’s even a tomato with an Indianapolis heritage.

According to Martha Stewart Living, the Broad Ripple Yellow Currant tomato was discovered growing in a crack in the street near 56th Street and College Avenue. Introduced in 1984 by Seed Savers Exchange, the plants produce hundreds of sweet, flavorful cherry tomatoes.

You can order Broad Ripple Yellow Currant seeds from a variety of online sources, including www.tomatofest.com.