You Say Tomato...

Human Highlighter Suit Tally:  6!

Growing up in New Jersey, tomatoes were a major food group during the summer.  Some years, we would grow a few plants on our back porch.  Practically everyone else we knew did the same thing, and when they came to visit us at Midway Beach, our friends would arrive bearing grocery bags full of tomatoes, zucchini, and other products of New Jersey’s sandy soil.  My father, whose Polish parents kept a kitchen garden and weaned him on local produce, ate tomato sandwiches all summer long.  Thick slices of Polish seeded rye bread slathered with mayo and filled with ripe, red tomatoes.  Lots of salt and pepper.  No lettuce, no meat, no cheese.  My sisters and I grew up on the stuff, too.  I have sharp memories of coming home from the beach for lunch, and eating my tomato sandwich in my bathing suit, standing over the sink to catch the drips.  Sometimes we ate the tomatoes like apples.  Tomato in one hand, salt shaker in the other, we would take a bit, sprinkle with salt, take another bite, sprinkle again.

The tomato is a symbol of our state.  Anyone who ridicules New Jersey for its “garden state” moniker has never ventured off of the Turnpike or Parkway.  Several years ago, when I was pregnant with C.C., I had a gathering of women friends and invited a henna tattoo artist to come and embellish us.  I got a mandala on my swollen belly, while my cousin Tracy had the artist draw a Jersey tomato on her forearm.

The Catalans have their own version of the tomato sandwich, and it is ubiquitous.  Here it is practically unthinkable to begin a meal without pan amb tomaquet, or bread with tomato.  Like the Jersey tomato sandwich, it is the simplest of food pleasures, and these simple pleasures are often the best.  They capitalize on what the Catalans call materia prima—best quality ingredients.  Ripe tomatoes, good bread, garlic, flaky sea salt.  So to make pan amb tomaquet, you have a baguette and toast it lightly.  Divide a garlic glove and rub it on the cut side of the bread; cut a ripe tomato in half and do the same.  Eat.  It doesn’t get much easier, or simpler, or more delicious, than that.

The first Sunday we were here, Borg (Alec’s stepmother’s cousin’s husband…) showed up with a bag full of his home-grown tomatoes, and I was momentarily transported back to Midway Beach.  In the ensuing days, I made tomato sandwiches, ratatouille, rising up to the challenge of consuming the beauties before a single one spoiled.  Somehow, more than with grocery store produce, I feel the need to honor the effort and care that had gone into producing these tomatoes.

When we returned from our Pyrenees vacation, our trunk half-filled with bottles and cans of a spectrum of olive oil varietals, I developed a strong hankering for bruschetta.  One evening, to satisfy my craving, I sent Alec out for some tomatoes.  He went for the reddest, ripest ones he could find from the several bins at the produce market.  “Hombre,” the grocer said as he began to pay, “these are only good for pan amb tomaquet—nothing else.”  His words were issued as a friendly warning, should Alec be thinking to use them in a salad or some other dish.  We did not make pan amb tomaquet, but bruschetta is not so far off.  It seems that every country that produces good tomatoes has come up with its version of a tomato sandwich. 

Even Ferran Adria, famous chef of the Catalan molecular gastronomy restaurant Il Bulli, has devised is own version of deconstructed pan amb tomaquet.

I spent an hour this afternoon cooking up a tomato compote to use in a tumbet—which is Spain’s more labor intensive version of ratatouille.  We’ll eat it tomorrow and I promise a full report.  For now, I’ll share with you the recipe for Tomato and Bread Soup with Fresh Figs—it’s fig season, too…

So as shocking as it might sound, I don’t really miss the Jersey tomato.  I have found no substitute, however, for Jersey corn.

Sopa de Tomate con Higos

(from The New Spanish Table, by Anya Von Bremzen)

¼ c. fragrant, extra version olive oil, plus more for serving

1 medium size onion, finely chopped

1 medium size green bell pepper, seeded and dice

4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 pounds ripe, fleshy tomatoes

1 tsp. smoked sweet Spanish paprika

2 to 2 ½ cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 medium size pinch or sugar, or more if needed

1 dash red wine vinegar, or more if needed

1 Tbsp. chopped fresh oregano

¾ tsp. cumin seeds

6 black peppercorns

1 large pinch coarse salt

3 slices dense country bread

4 green or purple figs, cut in half vertically and sliced

1.     Place the olive oil in a heavy 4 quart saucepan, and heat over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook, stirring, until softened, 2 – 3 minutes.  Add the green pepper, cover the pan, and reduce the heat to low.  Cook the vegetables until soft, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Stir in half the garlic and cook for another minute.

2.     Stir the tomatoes into the vetetable mixture, increase the heat to medium-high, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes reduce to a thick puree, 25 – 30 minutes, adjusting the heat so that the tomatoes don’t stick to the bottom of the pan.  Add the paprika and 2 cups of the chicken stock, stir to mix, then let come just to a simmer; don’t let the soup boil.  Add the sugar and vinegar and simmer for 6 – 8 minutes, skimming if necessary.  If the soup seems a little too thick, add the remaining ½ cup stock.

3.     While the soup is cooking, place the remaining garlic and the oregano, cumin seeds, peppercorns, and salt in a mortar and, using a pestle, mash them into a paste. Add a little liquid from the soup to the mortar to rinse it out, then stir the contents into the soup. Let the soup cook until the flavors blend, 2 – 3 minutes, then taste for seasoning, adding more sugar, vinegar, and salt as necessary.  Turn the heat off and let the soup cool for about 10 minutes.

4.     To serve, cut the slices of bread in half.  Place each half bread slice in a soup bowl and ladle the soup over it.  Top each serving of soup with a few fig slices and drizzle a little olive oil over them.

Recipe says it will serve 4, but two of us polished off the whole pot for dinner.