Tomato season is here! You can safely assume that I'm not talking about mealy hothouse tomatoes or even the tasty little Merinda variety from Sicily that has been available in France for the past few weeks. Today was the day that organic producer Pierre unveiled his tomato collection for the summer, and a few of his most loyal customers celebrated the event with a casual tomato brunch at 8.30am (the early bird catches the tomato in Nice).
Just a few of the 100 or so varieties that Pierre is cultivating were on display today, but this season looks like a promising one indeed. The géante de Renneberg (I'm not sure of the spelling) is an orangey-red tomato so big it seems to burst out of its seams. Cut into the ananas, or pineapple, and you'll discover yellow-pink hues reminiscent of a spring sunset. The green zebra tastes much sweeter than its striped skin suggests, creating beautiful contrast in a salad. There were also orange and yellow beefsteak tomatoes, the green-tinged noire de Crimée and a couple of others whose names I never learned as Pierre was so busy handling the flurry of customers.
For our brunch several kinds of tomatoes went into a giant salad drizzled with Alpes de Haute-Provence olive oil courtesy of Nadim and sprinkled with fleur de sel and torn basil leaves. We also had ewe's cheese from producer Jean-Luc, whose sheep are about to stop producing milk for the summer, a tomme de chèvre (hard goat's cheese) and fresh figs from Pierre's trees. No French picnic would be complete without wine and Pierre, in keeping with his open spirit, provided Australian Shiraz for the occasion (I noticed a pot-bellied local cop who appeared to be on duty indulging cheerfully).
At lunch I recreated the same salad - well, what else would I do with such colorful tomatoes? - embellishing it only with mozzarella di bufala. Sam and his little friend Quentin ate up every bit along with a few slices of silky Parma ham, and I was feeling proud of their good French palates until Quentin asked politely:
"So, can we go to McDonald's now?"
Tomatoes - wonderful. The taste of summer.
ReplyDeleteThat gorgeous photograph at the top makes me long for summer and juicy, ripe tomatoes. What else will you cook with such a bounty?
Beautiful photograph. Love all the different sizes and colours.
ReplyDeleteLucy, I find that with these tomatoes it's hard to do better than tomato salad, whether they are cut into thin slices, chunks or wedges. I also use the smaller ones to make the classic Niçois dish les petits farcis, little stuffed vegetables. I have been known to roast the tomatoes and I'm sure they'd be wonderful dried. For tomato sauce or soup it's best not to mix the colors, as this usually results in a disappointing pale pink liquid!
ReplyDeleteThanks Wendy! They tasted wonderful too - so sweet, despite it being early in the tomato season.
ReplyDeletePS I'm excited about trying your Onigiri!
Let me know how it goes! :)
ReplyDelete