Tomatoes: A True Passion

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I can’t remember when I first fell in love with tomatoes. Must have been as a young child, growing up in the Western suburbs of Sydney in the 60’s and 70’s when the tomato was the focal point of what I now loosely term, a salad. This was days of a salad consisting of iceberg lettuce, canned beetroot, slices of Kraft cheddar cheese, and large slices of tomatoes. Oh, sometimes, those huge, prickly cucumbers (if your mother was an exotic cook). Was there mayo? I really don’t remember it then, having only discovered the absolute joys of real mayo in my adulthood.

Consequently, I hated “salad” as a kid. The trauma of being served a salad at my grandmother’s house is still clear in my memory. The only way I could stomach it was to make a sandwich out of it. Problem was, she’d filled up the plate with so much salad that, 3 sandwiches later, I still hadn’t managed to consume half of the plate. Luckily, she took pity on me and removed the plate before my stomach exploded. Those were still the days of not wasting food and you were made to eat what was on your plate, no matter what! A throwback from the depression era, no doubt. Anyway, the joys of endless varieties of raw vegetables and homemade dressings (and Jamie Oliver: salad king) were still in the future. I had no idea.

But, tomatoes: now that was a different thing and an addiction of mine. And still is. School lunches consisted of Kraft cheddar cheese and tomato sandwiches every day. I loved them and looked forward to the beautiful pairing of tangy tomatoes and the salty cheese each midday. And sometimes just couldn’t wait and had one half for morning tea. Even a forgotten sandwich, found in my school bag the next day, didn’t go to waste as I found the “marination” of the cheese and tomato even more delicious the next day. God know they weren’t refrigerated and were certainly “ceviched” in the heat of my school bag which sat out in the sun for quite a few hours. I think that’s why I have such a solid constitution now because I never got sick. These days, you wouldn’t dare let your child eat such fare for fear of a visit to emergency and having your parenting skills seriously questioned and even prosecuted!

At this stage, I still hadn’t seen a cherry tomato and had no clue that there were so many varieties in the world. Of course, I also didn’t know that tomatoes were being bred for their longevity and that this was just when the mass production and transportation of food to supermarkets was really taking hold as people started losing their gardening skills stopped growing their own stuff in their backyards. Women were starting to work, too, so didn’t have time for gardening and culinary arts. It was the beginning of the end of a lot of domestic skills that was handed over to supermarkets and advertising. No need to worry about those things when you can buy what you want in the supermarket! Oh dear. It was clever and insidious.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to have two grandmothers who were excellent cooks. And I watched them cooking whenever I was staying with one of them. Loved it!

Maybe, my love of cheese and tomato sprang up from being eye level to the plate as I watched my grandmother slice soft cheddar from the block, place it on SAO biscuits, top that with tomatoes and sprinkle salt on them to serve to guests as nibbles. That was such a treat! And so simple. Mind you, I truly believe that we were still getting tomatoes that hadn’t been genetically modified too much then. They were still very red and ripe when you brought them home from the supermarket and/or fruit shop. (Remember fruit shops? You don’t see too many little, family owned fruit shops anymore.) But, I also had the experience of seeing them being home grown in my Grandmother’s husband’s garden. He’d been a market gardener back in the day when Guildford was full of acreage before the Housing Commission bought up all the farms and built fibro houses there. He still had a chook pen in the back yard and grew corn and tomatoes and cucumbers and all sorts of things. A delight to me. I started gardening when I got back home to our ¼ acre block in north St Marys much to my parents’ amusement. Neither of them were gardeners and didn’t have a clue. They just thought, “she’s amusing herself in the backyard.” Nope, no encouragement there.

I can’t remember where I got my first tomato seeds from. I wonder if Foster gave them to me. I certainly didn’t have any money to buy them. Can’t recall. But I do recall harvesting my first tomatoes. The juicy, tangy flavour hitting my tastebuds and Mum saying, ”They’re not very big, are they?” Mmmm, did I mention that I had no gardening encouragement from my family? Anywho. To this day, I still crave the juicy, tangy flesh of tomato and had to stop myself from adding them to almost every dish in some form or another.ie: spag bol, meatballs in tomato gravy, stews, pasta dishes. Even salads had tomatoes every time until I discovered Jamie Oliver’s salad recipes and his amazing dressings. Everyone has an obsession, though. His seems to be chillies in everything. Lol. Mine is tomatoes. Is it OCD? Should I get counselling? Nah, don’t want to.

I’m forced to purchase the cooler stored tomatoes from the supermarkets as I don’t have a backyard to grow them myself these days. And I discovered that you can coax a bit of flavour back into them by storing a few outside of the fridge for a day or two before you eat them. If you can wait 5 days or even 7, you’ll have beautiful, tasty tomatoes despite their genetics and treatment at the hands of the supermarkets. They’ll last for a good two weeks on your countertop with no ill effects. In fact, they’ll be better. My friends laugh at me when they see my tomatoes sitting on the window sill. They think I’m crazy as everyone seems to be brainwashed into believing that all food needs to be kept cool to stay fresh. See: these basic domestic skills are almost totally lost.

Lemons became a favourite flavour for me, too. Lemon juice melds perfectly with tomatoes. Add some salt and I’m transported. OMG. I have to stop writing to go and make some roasted cherry tomatoes now so when lunch time rolls around, I can add these to my lunch. Sorry, back to my story.

The discovery of Lebanese food in the late 80’s with it’s plethora of tomatoes, lemon juice and fresh herbs added another dimension to my tomato obsession. I learned to make my own hommus, baba ganoush and tabouli and from there embarked on a quest to experience every kind of middle food I could get my hands on. Oh dear. I am rabbiting on. That’s what obsessions do to you. A thousand apologies. Lol. But, get into the humble tomato yourself and you’ll learn to love it, too. No wonder it’s known as the love apple.

#Tomato #Roasted