Thursday, September 14, 2006
Years ago, when we grew lots of veg, tomatoes were always the jewel of the season. This is not to belittle the underground treasures of carrots and beets and potatoes and onions, or even the muscular winter squashes, all of whom would sustain us through the winter.
The tomatoes we raised were not keepers. They were not chosen for making sauce or slicing into a salad or turning into paste. Mostly, they appeared for six weeks and then were gone. Their names were Black Krim and Brandywine and German Yellow Stripe and Prudden's Purple. Lumpy, scarred of face, humble from every angle, and so very delicate -- the five-minute trip from garden to kitchen was as much high adventure for them as for humans to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen. Would their soft innards survive the bounce of the basket, or the pressure of my fingers? After so many months of leafing and blossoming and growing into fruit, would they disintegrate into mush before they fulfilled their reason for sprouting?
But when they made it to the plate, taste and smell perceived what sight could not. Filling their rich pulpy innards were soil and sun, and they softly said (yes, tomatoes are articulate, too): "Eat me and taste life."
Contrast these gems with their distant cousins, perfect plasticky orbs availabe every week of the year in supermarkets throughout this country. Where are they from? Do we know their names, the soil that grew them, the hands that harvested them?
But these toms shout at us: "I'm tough. I've travelled a long way to be here. Eat me, and survive."
When we awaken, which do we choose?
Have a slow journey,
Candace
The tomatoes we raised were not keepers. They were not chosen for making sauce or slicing into a salad or turning into paste. Mostly, they appeared for six weeks and then were gone. Their names were Black Krim and Brandywine and German Yellow Stripe and Prudden's Purple. Lumpy, scarred of face, humble from every angle, and so very delicate -- the five-minute trip from garden to kitchen was as much high adventure for them as for humans to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen. Would their soft innards survive the bounce of the basket, or the pressure of my fingers? After so many months of leafing and blossoming and growing into fruit, would they disintegrate into mush before they fulfilled their reason for sprouting?
But when they made it to the plate, taste and smell perceived what sight could not. Filling their rich pulpy innards were soil and sun, and they softly said (yes, tomatoes are articulate, too): "Eat me and taste life."
Contrast these gems with their distant cousins, perfect plasticky orbs availabe every week of the year in supermarkets throughout this country. Where are they from? Do we know their names, the soil that grew them, the hands that harvested them?
But these toms shout at us: "I'm tough. I've travelled a long way to be here. Eat me, and survive."
When we awaken, which do we choose?
Have a slow journey,
Candace
