To-may-to, To-mah-to, it’s all the same. A fruit by any other name would taste just as divine, and yes, I’ve done the research: a tomato is a fruit, more specifically, a berry. This fruit actually has gone by several names including the “love apple” and the “golden apple” but more about that later.
If you are as fortunate as I am, the gardens near you are bursting with tomatoes this year. There are so many tomatoes coming out of the garden that we are having to get inventive with how we eat them. Luckily, we don’t have to look far for an abundance of recipes that feature these beauties. I thought I’d share some of favourites with my three readers and go into what makes each of them so dang delectable.
Classic Tomato Sandwich:
There is no better way to put your fresh tomatoes front and centre than with the classic Tomato Sandwich. My preference is to toast the bread and add a little mayonnaise to sweeten the deal. Two additions to this, should your budget and diet permit, are a crumbly old cheddar or some crispy bacon.
Bocconcini Salad:
This is another meal that allows you to put focus on the beauty that is the tomato. With just four ingredients (tomato, bocconcini, basil and balsamic reduction), this is an easy throw together side dish with fantastic presentation and a lot of flavour.
Stuffed Tomatoes:
No matter what you are stuffing your tomatoes with, you are in for a treat. Using these little red delights as a basket to carry delicious yummies into your mouth is a win on so many levels. When I make stuffed tomatoes, I tend to stuff with a vegan walnut, mushroom, lentil mix (plus tomato innards) but I’ve also stuffed them with ground pork and have been equally satisfied. I like to grate some parmesan on top before popping them into the oven to bake because I simply cannot get enough cheese into my body.
Dehydrated Tomato Slices:
Now we’re getting into the preserving world. If you have the good problem of having too many tomatoes all at once and want to save them for winter, dehydrating is a great method. Slice them up and add a little basil and you’ve got yourself some pizza bites to munch on through the cold months.
Another fantastic method for preserving tomatoes for the long haul is to can them. If done properly, they should live on your shelf happily all winter. That way they can be brought out at any point to be used for sauces, soups or if you really like tomatoes, you can eat them straight out of the jar.
With so many delicious ways to enjoy these kitchen favourites, would you believe that they were once thought to be poisonous? Yes, that is correct. They were looked upon with suspicion and judgement and avoided at all costs. There are a couple of reasons for this and both makes sense given their circumstances. The first is that they are a night shade plant and although the tomato itself is not poisonous, pretty much every other part of the plant is. Yikes!
The other reason for their rejection from the kitchen was due to the fact that they were accidentally involved in the deaths of some nobles way back in the day. Although the fruit itself was perfectly healthy and edible, the earlier varieties were very acidic. This doesn’t bode well when you’re serving up meals on pewter dish ware. The acid from the tomatoes would actually lift lead out of the dish ware and as a result, several deaths resulting from lead poisoning took place. Of course, no one considered that the dish ware might be the culprit, the plant was tossed from kitchens everywhere. Everywhere except for in Central and South America where Indigenous peoples had been eating tomatoes since about 700 A.D. I like to think that they were looking over at Europe and thinking “You idiots.”
Luckily for all of us, the truth about the fruit eventually came to the surface and tomatoes were welcomed back into kitchens all over the world. Upon their return, they were given some pretty hilarious nicknames including the “golden apple” and the “Pomme D’Amour” - a name that came about as people used to think they were an aphrodisiac. I have eaten at least a tomato a day for the last two weeks and can say from experience that they absolutely are not. Either that or I’m dead inside.
When it comes to tomatoes, no dish is better than the other - they’re all just different. Deliciously different. And there is room for all of them at my table. What can I say, I’m pretty inclusive when it comes to food.