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Tomatoes Lend Themselves to Many Forms of Competition
• by Pat Eby
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Don’t even try to argue with me on this – there’s no reason to eat anything but locally grown tomatoes for the entire month of August. Grocery stores, farmers’ markets and roadside stands abound with plum tomatoes for sauces, cherry tomatoes for snacking and huge tomatoes for slicing
and stuffing.
Maybe it’s compensation for our blazingly hot summers. Heat seeps right through the thin skin and into the tender heart of this lush fruit. I like mine red, ripe and juicy. I enjoy a Cherokee Purple, German Pink or Green Zebra tomato just as much as the next food freak, but the taste of a homegrown beefsteak tomato transports me to my grandmother’s garden. She and I picked buckets full but always chose one to eat warm from the vine with just a little salt from a shaker Grandmother carried in her pocket. Update the ritual with Fleur de Sel if you must, but try this treat.
Speaking of rituals, you could travel to Buñol, Spain, for La Tomatina. Billed as a festival, it’s really the world’s largest tomato fight. If getting pelted with 125,000 kilos of squished tomatoes in eastern Spain isn’t your thing, consider attending Iron Barley’s first-ever Tomatofest on Aug. 14 from 1 to 6 p.m.
Gen Coghill, co-owner of Iron Barley, got the idea from regulars who once hosted a party inspired by a huge bag of homegrown tomatoes. Mussels with tomatoes, BLT sandwiches and tomato surprises will be on the menu. Coghill chose special wines to complement the flavor of tomatoes, as well as brews from O’Fallon Brewery and New Belgium Brewery. Additionally, Jackie Jones will make her signature Bloody Marys and Tomato Martinis using freshly juiced tomatoes.
Coghill has planned three contests for customers willing to share homegrown tomato goodness. The categories are: most unusual tomato, judges’ choice of a decorative item made with real tomatoes and best tomato recipe, evaluated from a covered dish contestants bring to the restaurant ready for the judges to taste. First, second and third prizes will be awarded in each category.
Clayton Farmers’ Market’s annual Heirloom Tomato Fest will take place on Aug. 13, and feature amateur cooking and biggest and sweetest tomato contests. Well-known St. Louis chefs will serve samples of tomato dishes to the hungry attendees. Another friendly competition happening this month is at Bayer’s Garden Shops, Inc. Sylvia Bayer said customers can bring oversize tomatoes to Bayer’s on Wednesdays for a chance to win bragging rights and prizes at both locations in St. Louis on Hampton Avenue and in Imperial on Old State Road.
At Bayer’s, tomato plants outsell other vegetable plants combined by ratios of more than four to one. “Most of our customers choose more than one variety, from the little grape tomatoes to patio tomatoes the size of a dinner roll to the bigger ones like Beefsteaks,” Bayer said. “Our customers have become very knowledgeable about tomatoes. We offer plums, yellows and pinks in addition to the reds, but the Better Boy family, including Big Boys and Better Girls, outsells them all.” Bayer noted more nurseries now carry heirloom varieties of tomatoes as plants for the adventurous gardener.
The fabled tomato, a New World plant transported from Central America to Europe in the 16th century, has fairly dominated the vegetable scene ever since, in everything from salsas to spaghetti sauce. By botanical definition, tomatoes are fruits – as are pea pods, squash, cucumbers, peppers and even corn kernels – but in our food culture, we consider them vegetables. In fact, in 1893 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes are vegetables. Tax money, rather than botanical purity, was at the heart of the court case.
Fascinating as history and politics and food fights can be, let’s put all that aside to enjoy locally grown tomatoes in friendly camaraderie this August.
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Jackie’s Famous Just-Picked Bloody Mary
Courtesy of Iron Barley’s Jackie Jones
Yield: 1 quart of mix
3 or 4 large, juicy tomatoes (Beefsteak or Big Boy)
1 bunch scallions (chop 3, keep the rest for garnish)
1 jalapeño pepper with seeds, finely chopped
3 Tbsp. A1 Steak Sauce
2 Tbsp. powdered or granular beef bouillon
2 Tbsp. horseradish
Crushed ice
1.5 oz. vodka
• Peel and chop the tomatoes. Using a food mill, food processor or blender, whir them until smooth. Pour the juice through a strainer to remove the seeds.
• Place 4 cups of the tomato juice, along with the scallions, jalapeños, steak sauce, bouillon and horseradish, in a blender and process until smooth.
• Fill an 8-ounce glass with crushed ice. Pour the vodka over the ice, then add the tomato mixture. Stir. Garnish with whole scallions.
Sweet Green Tomato Pie
Yield: 1 9-inch pie
2 ready-to-bake pie crusts or homemade dough sufficient for a 2-crust pie
1/4 cup Minute Tapioca
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. cold butter, sliced into small pieces
3 1/2 cups thinly sliced green tomatoes
1 cup thinly sliced Granny Smith apples, unpeeled
2 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp. cold water
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Evenly line a 9-inch pie pan with 1 crust, allowing the extra to hang over the edge of the pan.
• Mix the tapioca, cinnamon, cloves and sugar together. Spread one quarter of the mixture over the crust.
• Dot it with half the butter, then arrange half the tomato slices and half the apple slices in the pan.
• Sprinkle them with half the lemon juice and half the zest.
• Spread one quarter of the dry mixture over the slices, then repeat the layers with the tomatoes, apples, lemon juice and zest.
• Spread the remaining dry mixture on top and dot it with the remaining butter.
• Top the filling with the other crust, venting it with a knife to allow steam to escape. (Or use a lattice pattern for the top crust.) Crimp the edges of the crusts together or press them with a fork.
• Combine the egg and cold water to make an egg wash and brush it onto the crust.
• Bake for 50 to 55 minutes. (If desired, cover the edge of the pie with strips of aluminum foil to prevent burning the first 30 minutes of baking.)
• Allow the pie to cool before cutting so the filling thickens. To serve, top with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, if desired.
Savory Tomato Sorbet
Yield: 8 servings
2 1/2 lbs. ripe red tomatoes, peeled* and chopped
Juice from 1 lime
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups water
3 Tbsp. finely minced basil leaves
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
32 cucumber slices, 1/4-inch thick, for garnish
8 sprigs basil leaves, for garnish
2 oz. vodka
• Heat the tomatoes in a large saucepan over medium heat and cook for 15 minutes or until soft, stirring often.
• Use a blender, food processor or food mill with a fine grate to process the tomatoes into juice. Strain them through a fine sieve to remove the seeds.
• Add the lime juice, then measure 2 cups of the mixture. Store the additional juice for use in drinks or cooking.
• Mix the tomato juice, sugar, water, minced basil, salt and pepper together.
• If you have an ice cream maker, follow the manufacturer’s directions. If you don’t, place the mixture in a chilled metal pan. Freeze it for 40 to 60 minutes, until the edges are frozen.
• Stir it, then return the pan to the freezer and repeat the process. The mixture should freeze in about 3 hours but should not be hard.
• Chunk up the frozen sorbet into pieces, place them in a food processor and process until smooth. Pour the sorbet into a plastic container, cover and freeze 3 to 4 hours.
• To serve, arrange the cucumber slices in a flower pattern in sherbet dishes or martini glasses. Scoop sorbet into the dish, garnish it with basil sprigs and splash it with vodka.
Variations:
Use clam juice in place of part of the water. Add a dash of cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce or Tabasco. Try celery seeds in place of the basil and garnish the dish with celery stalks.
*If you juice using a food mill, you can skip the peeling process.
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