Real Tomatoes!

Last week I had the first tomato of the season and it was absolutely delicious. The best part was not the incredible marriage of natural sugars, acidity and juiciness bundled up in a gorgeous red fruit, but that I
shared this tomato with ten 2^nd and 3^rd graders. I'm sure that I'll never forget hearing one excitedly say, “I didn’t like tomatoes, but now I think I might.”

This was at the Brookland Farmers Market. When I say first tomato of the season, I mean the first real tomato. Grown by Licking Creek BendFarm in Pennsylvania and trucked in by the farm workers to the folks of DC. The kids were students at DC Prep and part of the Cooking Matters program designed by Share Our Strength and locally organized by the Capital Area Food Bank. I was the culinary instructor for their six week crash course on basic cooking and nutrition. While it was always exciting introducing them to cooking techniques and new flavors, during this class and the one I previous volunteered with I always felt like something was wrong. We were asking the students to try new things or to give old items like tomatoes a second chance, but the produce we were using was the bland varieties sold at the grocery store. These tomatoes were grown by large scale farms and bred for shelf life and transportation, but not for nutrition and certainly not for flavor. The tomatoes we desperately wanted them to like were flavorless, watery and more times than not just plain sad.

I hope those who know me and those who read this blog know that I would far prefer folks eat tomatoes, strawberries, eggs and more from wherever they can get them. Eating whole foods and cooking them should be the first goal, but for some products like those I just named the flavor and quality of local versus conventional is drastic. The little girl last week was just the starkest example yet, but I’ve had many friends who have said they didn’t like tomatoes until trying a “real tomato”.

On my way home, with the last tomato of the day (purchased after our class) safely stowed in my bag, I contemplated my own food journey toward seasonality. Growing up, despite my often picky tastes, I loved the plate of bell pepper, tomato and cucumber my mom would chop up for me at almost every dinner. Despite cooking a lot, it wasn’t until I moved out that I really began to understand the variety of prices and quality of produce when shopping. Even in mild Texas winters the peppers and tomatoes began to look so sad and the price I was paying for them just kept going up. As a poor college student who liked to cook I had to adapt or I’d be paying a lot of money in January to eat an extremely bland Israeli salad.

Thanks to a bargain hunting mom, some seasonality came natural. I eagerly consumed squashes in the fall and watermelon in the summer. Seeking my own bargains and quality produce I slowly learned when things where cheaper and better quality and by the time I moved into the Mount Pleasant neighborhood and began visiting the local farmers market, I had it well engrained in my head that seasonal meant better food at a better price.

And then I discovered heirloom tomatoes…but that’s a story for another time!

As for my precious tomato: you better believe I chopped it up and tossed it with mozzarella, sea salt, pepper and olive oil and ate up all the remaining liquid with some bread that very evening. Easy recipe, but I’ll post it below!

Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

by Leran Minc

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Keywords: raw salad appetizer vegetarian tomato mozzarella summer

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Ingredients (Serves 2 (as a side) Serves 1)

• 1 large Tomato, rough chopped into large pieces
• 4 oz Mozzarella (any will do, I prefer the small balls aka Ciliegine)
• 2 tablespoons Extra Virigin Olive Oil
• 1 teaspoon Sea salt (kosher salt will do)
• 1/2 teaspoon Fresh ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Combine ingredients in a bowl

2. Serve and enjoy (can't get any easier, right?)

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