102. Garden Fresh Tomatoes

           

            I grew up eating lots of homegrown fruits and vegetables because we lived in an isolated area where it was hard to get good produce and the climate was relatively mild and conducive to good gardening. Where I live now is not quite as mild so it takes a little more work to get the same success with a garden, but I have a love for my home grown tomatoes. I know that’s certainly not an exclusively American thing, but it’s here and an enjoyable part of my life as an American.

            Grocery store tomatoes always look beautiful but most of them never seem to have any flavor. I don’t know why that is, but it is. The tomatoes grown in your back yard or garden always have incredible flavor. Ok, you can occasionally find a good pear shaped cherry tomato or a Roma in a produce aisle in winter, but even they made no comparison to those specimens you grow at home. A Beefsteak tomato vine ripened just before the first kiss of frost in September that you slice and salt reminds you just how wonderful summer has been and how bountiful the harvest is. But I never limit myself to Beefsteak.

            Because I live where winter is a reality and the summer growing season is short, I experiment with all sorts of tomatoes. Yellow Taxi are prolific and grow on smaller vines. Varieties developed for this part of the world out of local universities can also be successful. Why stick with traditional red when you can have things like Prudence Purple and Yellow Taxi? Give those green striped tomatoes a try. They may not look quite ripe but you’ll know when those stripes pop and the flesh has lost that hardness only to give way to a soft delight. Any of these can be cooked down to a wonderful tomato sauce. Got some stale French bread? Snip some basil, chop the tomatoes, slice some fresh mozzarella, and mix it all up in balsamic vinegar and olive oil for a great bread tomato salad. Let the end of your summer be a tomato paradise. We’re a melting pot so we should enjoy our American heritage of fresh garden tomatoes.