Heirloom tomatoes

[valis2]

Let me sum up my attraction to food by saying this:

There are two vague categories of food. I am in between the two categories. I do love to shop at gourmet stores, and I like nice, fresh food and high-quality food. But I eat Lipton packaged noodles, too. So I kind of live in both the gourmet world and the non-gourmet world.

My friend in WI (and Alton Brown) have shown me the light regarding tomatoes, however.

My sister and my boss love this certain restaurant, and we go there for lunch occasionally. It's on the upscale side. The cheapest lunch item is $8. I'm not much into the restaurant simply because I don't want to get a full, huge, $14 lunch, and the only items that sound interesting to me are $14. Usually I get a burger there, and it's not that great. So yesterday we went there, and I got a burger, and they mentioned that the side dish of the day was heirloom tomatoes. I nearly went nuts. I love heirloom tomatoes. Massively. I eat at least ten pounds of them each fall, and I buy them at the gourmet grocery store/farmers' market, and they're awesome.

So I order them, and my sister goes on enthusiastically about how great it is. I wonder, though, because they apparently are served with a vinaigrette. It looked promising. There were five slices of tomatoes, and two of them were from one of my favorite heirloom tomatoes, the giant yellow/pink variety. But then I thought, they can't possibly get this right.

I was completely right. It was horrid. The vinaigrette might as well have been pure vinegar; it was insanely sharp. Any taste the tomatoes might have had was completely overpowered by the vinaigrette. And the tomatoes were ice cold. Right out of the industrial fridge.

Let me explain a little about heirloom tomatoes. They're older varieties of tomatoes that have (generally) not been bred over and over again to increase production, resist bugs, or live on less water. Most people would be surprised to hear that there are six shapes of tomatoes, and that tomatoes come in a near rainbow of colors. Yellow, orange, green, red, pink, purple...plus all of the striped varieties. The great thing about heirlooms? Taste! Some of them are so deliciously sweet I could eat them like eating an apple. I always disliked tomatoes until I met heirloom tomatoes. They're fabulous. Especially the pink ones...very sweet. Most supermarket tomatoes are grown and picked while they're green. Even though they are forcefully ripened, you are, in essence, eating unripe tomatoes every time you grab that red beefsteak at a grocery store.

And that stuff about being refrigerated? Alton Brown did a show and confirmed what my friend in WI said: Never, ever put your tomatoes in the fridge! Once a tomato hits 50-60 degrees F, the chemical compound within it responsible for most of the flavor breaks down, and you're left with an unripe, flavorless tomato. I've said this before to people, and they freak. "They'll go bad!" No, not really. I've had tomatoes last an entire week on the counter. I don't think they last much longer in the fridge, and they taste worse. I'm serious.

Okay, enough about the tomatoes. I have to go to work.

Comments

[jen-deben.livejournal.com]

I do hope you complained to the restaurant. If they are "upscale", then they should care about what their customers think of the food. No one gets better without feedback, so I'm a firm proponent of - politely - complaining when things are done wrong in a restaurant. They are a business, after all. They want to know how to make you happy, so that you'll come back.

For example, if my steak isn't cooked correctly (I'm squeamish about rare meat), then I will often eat it anyway, but I will always tell the server that there was a problem. The cook can't get better unless someone tells the cook when he or she is doing it wrong.

You're not being rude or whiny by politely complaining about how the food was prepared; you're doing the restaurant - and the cook - a favour.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I am not much of a complainer. Plus, my sister had raved about it, so it is acceptable for most of the midwest palates, obviously. If they have health code issues or they feel it's important to ruin---er, refrigerate tomatoes, then far be it from me to correct them. :)

You are right, though.