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Tomatoes

I don’t know what the things that pass for tomatoes in the grocery stores out west really are, but they sure as heck aren’t the red, luscious, fragrant, firm, juicy fruit that I remember canning with my parents or eating right from the baskets we bought in the country each summer. We’d travel just outside of Buffalo, where the houses were farther apart than they were in the city, and where trusting people left baskets or jars out for produce-buyers to drop money into. I miss the smell of those “real tomatoes.” I miss the taste and texture, the ripeness that arose out of rich, dark soil and someone standing in the evening light with a hose, patiently watering the vines.

How dare merchants use the same label for those pinkish, flavorless products heaped in mounds in the stores!

This entry was posted on August 20, 2006 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Summertime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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2 Responses to “Tomatoes”

  1. LIZAinBUFF says:
    August 23, 2006 at 10:34 am

    It’s interesting because some of the most successful markets and “grocery” stores in the area are selling what they call “certified home grown” produce. Grown and delivered daily by local farmers. Their products are often as good as what’s available as organic in the stores….Some are both locally grown AND organic and those most closely approximate what you remember from years ago.

    A friend of mine has a small garden and her heads of lettuce were enormous and dark green. Yummy!

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