Goodbye, Tomatoes!

For me, there’s nothing better than a bright red tomato, ripened in the sun, preferably from my own garden. I’m talking about a tomato that is so good and juicy; all you need is a salt shaker. No knife, no fork, just a pinch of salt and a big bite, with juice running all the way down my arm to my elbow. Even better if they’re still a little warm from the sun. Back in the day we would buy tomatoes by the bushel from Luebcke’s Farmstand and set them on the back porch with some napkins and one of those tin salt shakers, the kind with the handle on the side. Everyone would help themselves. What was left ended up in ball jars in the fruitcellar, and eventually in a pot of chili or spaghetti sauce. This year we were the grateful recipients of what must have been a bumpercrop for some friends of ours. We ate the last one over the weekend.

Plant `em in the spring;
eat `em in the summer.
All winter with out `em’s a culinary bummer.
Only two things that money can’t buy, that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.
-Guy Clark

Ah, lament the passing of summer and homegrown tomatoes! What are we left with? An unsavory little product of Purdue University’s genetic engineering. In the early 70’s I attended a summer horticulture program at Purdue, where they were working to develop a tomato that would ripen slower, travel farther, and stay on the grocery store shelf longer.

Sadly enough, they hit their mark. This tomato has been sitting on the cabinet for well over a month. I thought it might ripen, but no, it’s just as hard and orange as when I brought it home. This tomato has outlasted two grocery bags full of garden tomatoes.

Having a tomato in my salad in December is nice. I guess. I’m just not sure the gain was worth the loss. Come on Purdue! Maybe you could go back to the drawing board one more time and give it the old college try. You can do it Boilers, I know you can!