I was born and raised in New Jersey, and spent childhood summers with a pile o’ tomatoes and a salt shaker, eating my fill. I vividly remember being in south Jersey with my first husband, Bruce Torbet, working on a civil rights documentary called “Mississippi Summer,” on the day of the first moon landing. I spent the day up to my ears in a cornfield (unplanned pun), eating the sweet raw corn between takes (I was the sound recordist). I had been an avid follower of the space program, so in anticipation of watching the moon landing, we stopped at a farm stand and bought a humongous bag of tomatoes, and a whole container of Morton’s salt. That night I sat propped up in the motel bed with my tomatoes and salt, happy as could be, although I had a suspicion the landing had been shot in a loft on Greene Street in Soho (remember the flag that was wired to look as though it was flying in the breeze?). What a wonderful day!First-rate tomatoes have come and gone in my life. In many places where I've traveled they were stupendous, but even in California they didn’t measure up to New Jersey standards, and in winter—forget about it. Here in San Miguel, for all that I love the place, the tomatoes look appealing, but are lacking in taste, as though reconstituted from some combination of sawdust and tomato paste. But lo and behold, thanks to the burgeoning, green/environmental movement here in town, there is a new organic gourmet store in my humble neighborhood, Vía Orgánica, and the tomatoes are wonderful. So again I have bags of fabulous tomatoes and a big salt shaker, and I am as happy as can be…. Viva Vía Orgánica!
Hey Lulu - as a lad growing up in Philadelphia, each summer "vendors" would come through the alleys of our neighborhood shouting in a singsong kind of way - "Jersey tomatoes four pounds for half a dollar." We had fresh Jersey tomatoes and white corn on the cob (my other favorite) almost every night for dinner. I ate so many tomatoes that my mouth developed chancre sores from all the acid (didn't care).
ReplyDeleteI've rarely tasted tomatoes that good in my life. On the rare occasions I do, it's an almost orgasmic experience. Thanks for the story. I'm young again and full of Jersey tomatoes.
La Lulu,
ReplyDeleteLove the blog! Every year we struggle to grow our own tomatoes here but have never succeeded in producing anything larger than cherry tomatoes. Sombreros off to Via Orgánica. Now I realize how much we took for granted the easy abundance from our garden in Missouri. I long for a huge just-picked tomato, warm from the sun and messily eaten like an apple.
Organica