Organic A-Z: Tomato

Rice, Strawberries, and now tomatoes...I feel like I'm losing my creativity here, just cranking out these obvious candidates. But tomatoes are delicious! And they're everywhere and we really take them for granted.

It has always fascinated me to think that this crop was "discovered" by the Spanish conquistadors. Tomatoes are a New World plant and never made their way to Europe until Columbus and his thugs came a trampling all over the Americas. There are heaps of other crops in this same category: potatoes, peppers, corn, squash, chocolate, tobacco... It's hard to imagine Italian food without tomatoes, Indian cuisine with no hot peppers or the Irish without potatoes.

A few things about tomatoes. If you are buying them in a grocery store, I recommend putting them on a windowsill at home to let them ripen more. The bastards in the store are just not reaching their full potential. This is another crop that is frequently picked early in the field so that it'll stay firm during transport...some growers gas their tomatoes with ethylene to turn them red prematurely.

Vitamin C! Plenty of that going on in a tomato. You've also got A and a bunch of minerals including potassium and manganese...all good stuff. Tomatoes taste healthy, know what I mean? They are bright and acidic and energizingly sweet all at the same time. I also love their healthy smell, well it's really the plant's smell. Check out a tomato vine sometime and rub one of its leaves between your fingers and inhale that crazy intoxication.