TASTE OF SUMMER
No matter how you slice them, tomatoes define the season
YEva Lang had this to say: “Open face tomato sandwiches — toasted Jewish rye, spread with a mix of softened cream cheese and mayo, heirloom sliced tomatoes, dill, fresh cracked pepper and sea salt.”
Christie Wilson Rowland: “Tomato, mayo, salt, pepper, alfalfa sprouts, avocado on WHITE BREAD!”
There is no shame in that; Chris Gang, the retired food writer for The Commercial Appeal, and Alyce Mantia Price, who owned Mantia’s, take their tomato sandwiches on white bread, though Gang uses a baguette and Price, brioche.
But there are many ways to enjoy a tomato, and plenty to enjoy.
Angela Oswald is the daughter of Peach World owner Clara Oswald, and she’s worked their stands at the Agricenter Farmers Market since she was 8 years old. She said that of the 250 acres her family farms in Nutbush (the home of Tina Turner), 150 are devoted to tomatoes, squash, peppers and other such farmers market items.
“We harvest on Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” she said. “Everything that’s ripe is picked.”
This year they’ve had problems with wind damage to some of the tomatoes, and they came in a bit later than they normally would because it was too wet to plant early. But once they started planting, they put in new rows every two weeks. She said they’ll get about 15,000 tomatoes from each cycle and should harvest through October.
They grow numerous varieties, such as Cherokee Purple, plum tomatoes, Big Mountain Fresh, Jet Star, Brandywine and Crimson Gold, a yellow tomato she likes to use for soup.
“They make a good soup. You just mash them up, add salt and pepper and whatever herbs you want, just put it in the blender,” she said.
She eats it as is, but such a fresh tomato puree would make an excellent base for gazpacho, a cold soup that is typically made with tomatoes and other fresh summer vegetables. There are countless variations of the soup, though, including those with nuts and bread instead of vegetables. Tomato pie is a Southern summer classic, and the variations on that are nearly as limitless as gazpacho; they fall in two categories — with eggs, like a tomato quiche — or a layered pie with other vegetables, usually onion, and herbs. Be sure to salt your tomatoes and drain them in a colander to keep your pie from being soggy.
Tomato gravy is a side at John Currence’s Big Bad Breakfast in Oxford; Flo’s tomato jam is popular at Felicia Suzanne’s; a big slice of tomato comes on the pimento cheese biscuit at Elwood’s Shack. Panzanella, or bread salad, is a classic way to use day-old bread and fresh tomatoes, and cornbread salad is the Southern spin on that. We make fresh salsa, infinitely better than store bought, and use both ripe and green tomatoes for chow chow.
Still, most folks agree that simple is often best. Sliced with salt and pepper, in a Caprese salad (with fresh mozzarella and basil; chef Jennifer Dickerson says it’s better to chop the tomatoes than to slice them), tossed with a bit of soy sauce, sesame oil and mint or cilantro, as Price suggests, or like this, per Marisa Baggett: “Chop some tomatoes and toss in a few sliced scallions. Add a splash of sesame oil, a few sesame seeds and some sushi rice dressing (rice vinegar, salt, sugar). So great. Especially when served on unabashedly plain cold tofu.”
And there’s this, as the late Edna Lewis writes of tomatoes in “The Taste of Country Cooking”:
“There were high points of the summer that made your work rewarding. One was the day that you picked the first ripe tomato. From that day until the first frost, no dinner was complete without a dish of sliced luscious red tomatoes, sprinkled liberally with granulated sugar and fresh black pepper with a light touch of salt, then left to marinate for 10 or 15 minutes.” ou can buy strawberries in the dead of winter, oranges in the middle of summer, and the days of waiting for spring asparagus are long gone. In this day of global agribusiness, of fruit and vegetable on demand, anticipation is all but dead when it comes to produce.
But the allure of the local tomato will hold us until the day someone figures out how to ship the thinskinned, lush and juicy tomatoes that we pluck from vines in our backyards or buy at local markets. No one pulls out the Duke’s and white bread in January; it’s safe to say our tomato sandwich cravings can only be satisfied in season.
Dozens of you shared your favorite way to enjoy the taste of summer, and that simple treat led the list, with a few variations.