Tomatoes

We went for a drive last weekend. It was the kind of drive that I love, the kind that relies only on the simple things - cold mountain air, singalong radio, hopeful conversation, and a picnic lunch of vegemite sandwiches and milk arrowroot biscuits. We drove all the way to Bathurst past endless farmland and eucalptus forests, with my feet up on the dashboard and the sun shining down as if it always knew we were going to be on that road that day, and was glad to see us.

On the way home, we stopped at a roadside tomato stall and scraped enough change together from our pockets and the nooks and crannies of the console to pick up a bag of organic, farm-grown tomatoes. I've always had a tedious relationship with tomatoes - I used to refuse to eat them altogether because I hated the texture and bland squishiness (they used to be referred to as the "red devil" in my house)... but slowly trained myself to incorporate them in to meals because I felt I was missing out on too much by not enjoying anything with fresh tomato in them. Even so, it always has to be prepared very specifically - thinly sliced, paper-thin if possible, all soggy innards removed, and peppered within an inch of its life. This is not negotiable. There are only two choices: peppered thin tomato, or death.

I always attributed this to an old rant of my father's, in which he constantly pontificated on the blandness,  flavourlessness of modern tomatoes and bemoaned their pale, wimpy colour. If I was ever to taste real tomatoes, he informed me, I too would feel a deep soul-wrenching disappointment in what our supermarkets dole out as passable ripe tomatoes.

With this in mind, and with a love of rustic farm-fresh vegetables already established, I leapt barefoot out of the car and selected a bag of beautifully red, tender fruits, and with some trepidation accepted a small taste of one of the samples offered.

Oh. My. Gawd.

It was unlike anything I had ever tasted before. Fifteen minutes later I was still raving about the lingering taste in my mouth - and this was raw, squishy, unsalted and unpeppered tomato I was talking about. I couldn't wait to get home and see what I could do with these babies. I was not disappointed. For lunch I tossed together several cubed tomatoes, thinly sliced red onion, basil, fresh salt and pepper and a splash of olive oil, then stirred it in some hot wholemeal spaghetti - heaven. For breakfasts I sliced it fresh and had it with a poached egg on garlic-rubbed toast and some cottage cheese - divine. For dinner I roasted halves with chunks of eggplant and garlic and tossed it with some coucous, chickpeas and green beans - wow. I ate tomato in every meal for days and then when the remainder looked like they were on their last legs, I threw them all in a pot with some oil and a bit of chilli and simmered for hours then pureed - so sitting in my fridge now is a jar of rich sunset-red sauce that will be put to glorious use tonight in a Sunday night lazy pasta extravaganza.

One day I am going to go back up those mountains, pick up a bootful of these buggers, and spent a whole week perfecting The Art Of The Tomato. And then, when I'm grown up one day, I will grow them in my own garden and have years to continue my quest. I wonder how they'll taste in a moroccan-style eggplant feta stew? Or on bruschetta? Or, the pinnacle of them all, my Aunty Sue's egg and tomato pie (of which I will have to share the recipe on here one day)?

xoxo