Instructions
Have you got a spare patch of dirt in the backyard, or room for a large pot on your balcony? Go on, have a look, it’ll be worth your while.
Plant a tomato bush, they’re dead easy to grow. Tomatoes just need a good amount of sunlight, reasonable access to water, and for you to keep the bugs off them.
It’s the start of a great and passionate love affair. You see, this is X-rated food appreciation that makes Last Tango in Paris look like nothing more than a cheap French dance class.
If you can remember your first kiss, you’ll be on the right track when you try to imagine what that virginal bite of your home-grown tomato is like. Sun-blushed, plump and straining with flavour she begs you to embrace her. You stop, a little uncertain, nervous, anticipating breathlessly. Her perfume rises up to your nose: sweet, grassy and fresh.
The passion builds and your lips meet her. Then…….
Well, it ends badly for the tomato I must say, as you gnaw her apart in a twisted fervour of mindless satiety. All too often great love cannot last. But fear not, there’s plenty more ripening on the bush.
I find shop-bought tomatoes are, all too often, nothing more than a bleeding disappointment. A waste of money and time. Tomatoes need to ripen on the vine with full sunlight to ever develop good flavour. It’s called photosynthesis, and you can’t fake it.
Yet really ripe fruit is often too soft to transport without spoiling, so the chips come down mostly on the side of profit-taking, while flavour and nutrition go to the dogs.
Remember, centuries ago some Spaniards brought the tomato back to Europe from South America and the plant found its way to Italy. For years no one ate it as they thought it was poisonous. Until that first bite, that first kiss. And so the Italians became the great lovers, spurred on by their little red friend.
Imagine what it might do for you!
Meeeow!
Caprese tartlette