Rubin - Tomatoes: a Savor the Southtm Cookbook

They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, from pink to peachy, from green to tangerine, from brick red to chocolaty-purple. Theyre sun-kissed, vine-ripened, with skins so thin they can barely contain the juice. Some are intensely sweet; others have tart undertones. The tomatoes of summerI adore them all.

Tomatoes are the most widely grown vegetable in home gardens. The hottest thing going at farmers markets. The most anticipated offering in community-supported agriculture baskets. Each season brings more types and wilder colors, and tomatoes become ever more appreciated. Did anyone ever write a song about radishes or kale? I dont think so.

Chances are if youre picking up this book, you already love tomatoes. Youre already humming the song.

Tomatoes have long been a staple of southern gardens and cooking. Food writer John Egerton called them the sun-ripened sirens of summer. Each part of the season has its amazing tomato moments. The first taste. The second slice. The day the big heirlooms arrive at the farmers market, with everyone squinting in the sun and smiling wide. Lugging away full baskets of tomatoes purchased from tired, proud farmers. Dont forget the little tomatoes, the cherries and the pears, sassy-sweet nuggets of flavor.

Never fear, this book will be useful year-round because tomatoes are available year-round. And the bad old cardboard supermarket tomato, shipped green, gassed with ethylene so it pinks up, is easier than ever to avoid. Because we began to pay attention to taste and demanded quality, many supermarkets carry an ever-expanding selection of flavorful tomatoes in all shapes and colors. And there are always good-quality canned tomatoes. For some recipes in this book, canned tomatoes are best. Or second best. And I have highlighted the recipes that bring out the most flavor in less-than-perfect tomatoes. Of course, nothing beats fresh tomatoes in season, especially locally grown. Especially grown close to home.

In my garden, I grow many vegetables that I love, from beets to peppers to potatoes to cucumbers, with all sorts of stuff in between the rows, but Ill admit to a tomato bias. How are your tomatoes doing? I ask fellow growers, because the answer is so often the measure of the garden itself.

We have friends who time their yearly visit to coincide with the ripening of the Brandywines. We throw an annual party for my food-writer colleagues at the height of the tomato harvest. Everyone, except for those who grow their own, leaves here with a basketful. Some of my friends prefer to visit at the close of the season, when Im frying and pickling the green tomatoes.

While I look at food with a gardeners eye, I also see it through the eyes of a chef. My days are busy planning meals and planting plots, both strong passions, although Ive been cooking food longer than Ive been nurturing a garden. I watched my mother tend her garden, and she observed her own mother. My mother is still growing flowers and vegetables, and we chat frequently about gardens, each of us gloating some, as my vegetables ripen three weeks ahead of hers but her flowers are prettier. Early on, together, we canned her homegrown tomatoes in home-brewed tomato juice, adding a sprig of basil to each jar. My love of tomatoes was precocious.

In this book, Im looking at tomatoes through the lens of the South, where theyre an important element in so many dishes. As cookbook author Virginia Willis writes, Tomatoes are a key ingredient in both traditional and new Southern cooking. After all, the South is the region of the United States where tomatoes were first introduced and acceptedonce people believed they werent poisonous.

They thrive in the South, writes Willis. They love the blistering heat and the fertile soil. Tomatoes may only grow in the summer months, but in the South, they are enjoyed year-round.

In this region, with its lovely, long growing seasonsome areas enjoying two harvests, early and latea plate of tomatoes is not only welcome but expected on the table at every meal. When its too steamy to turn on the stove, you can turn to a tomato sandwich, nearly a food group in itself. Once the juicy slicers ripen, people just grab the soft white bread, a knife, and the mayo, opening things up for endless passionate discourse on which mayo to usehomemade or store-bought, Dukes or Hellmanns.

Homes and restaurants all over the South show off tomatoes with pride, bragging on their gardens and growers. Heirloom tomato salads appear everywhere, some fancy, some more basic, sometimes just the perfect refreshing combination of tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. Honestly, in the heat of tomato season, nothing is better than a platter of multicolored tomatoes in their prime, freshly sliced, drizzled with fruity olive oil, with maybe a drop of mild vinegar, perhaps a few slices of Vidalia onion, and plenty of salt and black pepper. Except, of course, plucking sun-warmed cherry tomatoes right from the vine. You can do a lot to tomatoes, or you can let them shine in all their juicy glory.

In the South, when the days get a touch cooler, tomatoes are enjoyed stewed, cobblered, and baked under a mantle of crumbs. Big skillets of simmering tomato gravy are ladled over split biscuits or sliced tomatoes. Tomatoes are stirred into soups, hot or cold, creamy or chunky, mild or spicy. Red and green tomatoes are baked in pies, sweet or savory.

Near the end of the season, theres the rush to put up the harvest, to make sauce, jam, chutney, pickles, signature ketchup, chow-chow, and sweet-and-spicy spreads, keeping tomatoes on the table all year-round. And as frost threatens, green tomatoes are breaded with flour, cracker crumbs, or cornmeal and fried in bacon drippings, then served with eggs and bacon, country ham, pimento cheese, buttermilkblack pepper dressing, or a sweettart tomato conserve. Writes cookbook author Sheri Castle: Theres nothing like a tomato to perk things up.

Tomatoes are celebrated and feted throughout the South, where festivals crown tomato queens and their juniors, tommy-toes. There are tomato-throwing contests, tomato recipe contests, and tomato-eating contests. At the Lauderdale Tomato Festival in 2007 in Ripley, Tennessee, young and old volunteers helped build the Worlds Largest Mater Sandwich. Atlanta hosts the Attack of the Killer Tomato Festival, where chefs and mixologists are paired with farmers to create a new dish or tomato libation.