Tomato: The fruit of love.

Buongiorno.
Among my Italian friends, we often speak of a most wonderous creature, an elusive being that we await for all year that reminds us we are not that far from home after all.

One taste, one look, and we're right there, if only for a few precious moments. Sun in our face, loud conversation surrounding us, words ending in vowels, and heat so intense, even thinking makes us sweat: This is the role of the tomato in Italian lore.

Last year, thanks to a fortuitous series of circumstances, a few Italian friends and I discovered a particularly phenomenal one. It was an organic, dry-farmed tomato from the Bartle family farm: Two Dog Farm. We all agreed it had the perfect flavor and texture, and we started buying up the stock at the only 2 markets in San Francisco that carried it. When the season ended in September 2005, we resigned ourselves to the fact that it would be another year until such a treat would grace our plates again.

Well, it's back! I quickly emailed the interested parties: Let the eating begin. Summer fog be damned! For us the tomato defines the season, not the lousy weather.

This past weekend, I'd just bought a couple of pounds at Buffalo grocery in the Castro, when I did my regular walk through the Alemany farmers' market — and lo and behold, what do I see?
Could it be? It was! I swiftly looked up and asked: Are you the Bartle family?
That's how I met Nibby and Miles (below), two farmers whose product allows me to feel just a bit closer to home.

The Bartles are a family of four from the Santa Cruz area running a small family farm, and it was their very first day at a San Francisco farmer's market.  I told them what their tomatoes meant for me and my friends, and how we looked forward to eating those dry-farmed beauties all year.

All their effort means something very special to me, to Ilaria, and to many others — on a personal level, not in some abstract way. From their care, to the market, to my hands, to me and my dinner guests.

Now if we could all reap such rewards from our daily work...

In Italian the tomato used to be called pomo d'amore, pome of love, back in the 1800s when it was the custom for a gentleman to bring a small tomato plant when  visiting his beloved. It was only introduced to Europe from central and south American plant in the 1500s, so it was still an exotic gift, like bringing an orchid these days. It wasn't eaten; its kinship with the notorious Deadly Nightshade (in Italian, belladonna) affected its popularity as an edible vegetable. Between the lethal belladonna (literally, "beautiful woman" in Italian) and the supposedly poisonous pome of love, you can make your own deductions about the Italians' particular outlook on love and relationships.

Over time, the pomo d'amore's red, orange and sometimes bright yellow colors turned its name to pomo d'oro (pome of gold), and that's how it remains to this day: Pomodoro. The word in English and most other western languages come from the Nahuatl (the language used by the Aztecs) tomatl.

Which ones do I buy?
Taste them and buy only the fresh, ripe, spicy-scented ones — put your nose to them already! When fresh, they're a nutritional powerhouse. If they're allowed to ripen on the vine, tomatoes develop a very rich, full flavor thanks to the presence of the savory Glutamic acid (present in most meats). Glutamic acid is responsible for one of the basic five flavors: Umami. At full ripeness you'll also notice a a carmel undertone that comes from the production of the desired furaneol aroma compound (also present in strawberries and pineapples).

Don't bother buying supermarket-variety tomatoes, the poster children of flavorless produce. These tomato species are selected for their capacity to tolerate long shipping, instead of flavor. They're picked when still green, and their red color is produced with exposure to ethylene gas.
 

Now, do everyone a favor: Go to the market, sample a few Bartle tomatoes and bring some home. Slice them, dress them with a touch of extra-virgin olive oil and a few drops of balsamic vinegar, indulge their demand for a few leaves of sun-drenched basil, add some fresh, creamy mozzarella, and devour.

Let the textures and flavors overwhelm your palate. It's great to let summer in.

A presto,
Marco Flavio

Comments

[Tara Hui]

Made me wanna rush out and buy some right now. Hope they come back to the Alemany market this week - I'll even get up early for that ;)

[Nibby Bartle]

Wow! We are thrilled at the attention and excitement generated by our awesome tomatoes. Thanks Marco! We felt so welcomed at Alemany that we're bringing almost twice as many tomatoes next time. Miles and I will also have a lot of heirloom tomatoes. Many heirlooms are overhyped, trendy, and not remarkable taste-wise, but we found some that are up to our standards. They're big, thin-skinned and an interesting purple-red when ripened.We bring them a little underripe so they can handle the market and journey home; they'll ripen beautifully.

My husband and I have been farming for more than 20 years and we've grown all sorts of vegetables, but our hearts belong to our dry-farmed tomatoes. They are so special. And they do elicite such passion from customers! Like a perfect peach or fragrant strawberry, our tomatoes seem so rare among modern supermarket produce. They bring people back to their childhoods, their old country, the family garden, sunny summer memories...

But the season is only about a month or two long, so don't hesitate!

Nibby

[kirsten]

Hurray! We bought six dry-farmed tomatoes from Buffalo on Saturday. Now, we have none. delicious! I'm looking forward to finding them at the farmer's market, too.