The Forty-Dollar Tomato

Don’t you just love gardening catalogs? In the pictures, all the plants behave like impeccably dressed schoolchildren in some mythical nation where there is no dirt or chocolate.  If you simply use this bean-support, that tomato cage, the beneficial amoeba/natural pest repellant on page 72, your plants will yield like a stall at the Union Square Greenmarket.  Then there are the garden centers.  I don’t know about you, but my eyes are waaay bigger than my appetite (for labor).  When you arrive home with 14 varieties of heirloom vegetables and survey the small garden patch (yes dear, you do have to double-dig and amend the soil before you can plant the new arrivals), it suddenly begins to feel like a job. Wait – don’t we already have one of those?

Vegetable gardening used to be fun, but since everyone’s read and digested Michael Pollan’s seminal and generation-changing book The Omnivore’s Dilemma--you have read it, right?--the urge to garden has begun to feel more political, perhaps even evangelical.  By raising and eating our own food, we’re told, we can save the planet for our children and theirs, but only if there are enough of us.  A committed locavore must consume only what you or someone else within a 100-mile radius has grown/raised/produced (coffee and tea are usually excepted from the formula).  I viscerally love this idea, until I start to think about bananas, mangos, and January.  What, exactly, is grown in the Hudson Valley in January?  This is where the inconvenient truths begin to sprout like dandelions (which make a great salad, by the way).  

How much will it cost to buy and run an extra freezer to preserve enough of what I’ve grown or bought from local producers in the temperate season to feed my household over the winter?  How much energy was expended shipping my five crucial orders from the gardening catalogs to my door?  Or manufacturing the products I ordered and the packaging they arrived in?  Even if we acknowledge that the energy expenditure can be amortized over the next three or four growing seasons, what about the actual dollar expenditure?  Let’s look at the most inconvenient truth of all: The whole locavore scenario excludes huge portions of the population – those for whom food choices are not high-concept but rather a matter of survival—economic survival.  Would I pay a little extra to put tasty, politically correct dinners on my table?  Well, yes, as long as I’ve got a little extra after I fill up the car, pay the propane bill, and spend twice as much for a bottle of ketchup that had to travel all the way from Heinz-world, wherever that is.  (Surely, ketchup must be exempt from the locavore formula.  I am not making my own ketchup.)

I’m all for grass-roots change, but let us remember that the elite are not populous enough to manage it all alone.  If only the moneyed classes pursue any sort of agenda, it’s just a gesture, and an empty one at that.  Whatever happens in this country over the next ten years must involve everyone, from the Katrina-displaced to the blue-collar work forces of Iowa and Maine to the high-rise dwellers of Manhattan and Chicago.  Thinking about the hurdles we face together gives me such a pounding headache that I’m headed outside to pull Japanese beetle-chewed leaves off my plants and do a little under-my-breath grumbling.  Is it always the worst of times?  I remember when my father vowed to leave the country if Ronald Reagan was elected.  He was, dad didn’t, and we survived.  Is what’s happening now worse, or does it just feel worse because I’m approaching the age—and its attendant perspective—of my dad when he made the vow?  It feels pretty damned bad to me.  

But lo! What’s that glowing-red orb I spy peeking out from behind the ragged leaves?  It’s smooth and rosy and full of lush promise; a small harbinger of the impending northeast fall that for this precious moment, here in this neck of my valley, paints a huge grin on my face.  I am a proud parent, as I survey the round shapes and delicate variations from green to orange to red that populate my little rectangle of goodness.  

Oh, I get it. This is why.


A Summer’s Day Tomato Gratin
Serves 5 to 6; may be doubled if you have enough big baking dishes (no overlapping allowed!)

3 large, ripe—but not mushy--tomatoes (preferably heirloom), cored and sliced a good 1/2 inch thick
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup roughly chopped basil leaves
3 cloves garlic, very finely chopped
1 cup coarse, fresh sourdough bread crumbs
1/3 cup finely grated imported Parmesan or domestic grana padana

Place all the sliced tomatoes between two paper towels and let stand for 45 minutes to an hour.
Preheat the oven to 475F, place a rack in the center position, and brush one or two large, shallow gratin dish(es) or earthenware casserole(s) with a little olive oil.
Arrange the tomato slices in a single layer in the dish(es). Season lightly with salt and pepper and scatter half the basil over the top.
In a small skillet, sizzle the garlic in the olive oil for about 45 seconds, or until the aroma is released. Remove from heat and stir in the bread crumbs and a touch more salt and pepper. Scatter the breadcrumb mixture over the tomatoes and top with the Parmesan.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the crumbs are golden.  If desired, let stand for up to 1 hour, then re-heat in a low oven for 5 to 10 minutes before serving, if desired.