The novelist on the mystery of tomatoes
We have now lived through the pandemic in all the seasons. If the long days and nights seem to have morphed into one long, grey season, I think it is the humble tomato, in all its varieties, that has lifted me to somewhere else and changed my mood. The old German word for tomato, wolfpfirsich, translates into English as ‘wolf peach’. What an image that conjures in the tedium of lockdown. I see silver wolves, their noses buried in the vines, dribbling juice and seeds under the light of the Saxony moon. Well, it passes the time as rain falls gently and persistently on the newly silent city of London.
Tomatoes are somewhat mysterious to me. I don’t totally understand them, which makes them all the more alluring. For a start, they seem to have a muddled identity: are they fruit or vegetable, wild or domesticated? Apparently, they resemble the luscious berries of poisonous nightshade. Early botanists tell us they were often mistaken for each other, and indeed they are members of the delirium-inducing nightshade family, along with aubergine, tobacco and chilli peppers. Their fragrance, to my taste, is not exactly pleasant, but it is wild and enticing.
I always keep an assortment of oddly shaped tomatoes in a bowl on the dining table in my home. Their splash of colour is an aphrodisiac in itself. The crinkly yellow and green variety cohabit with the perky scarlet cherry, small as the tip of my thumb. I often slice the greener tomatoes and sprinkle their explosive sour flesh with sea salt and whatever virgin olive oil I happen to have in the kitchen at the time. The oil is as important as the tomato itself. It should be emerald, peppery, the elixir of life. This simple dish seems to give me energy in the afternoon. It really can invigorate my mood.
All through the seasons of the pandemic, I have been roasting cherry tomatoes with cumin, thyme, olive oil and date syrup. When they blacken and caramelise, the great Ottolenghi’s genius was to teach me to tip these hot tomatoes into chilled Greek yoghurt that has been alchemically changed by adding the zest and juice of a lemon. This comforting aromatic dish always lifts me out of my city apartment to somewhere else altogether – perhaps to the song of cicadas on a sweltering night. Like imagination itself, it’s a way of travelling without catching a train or plane.
‘Real Estate’ by Deborah Levy (£10.99, Hamish Hamilton) is published on 13 May.