A Hunger for Tomatoes

September 26, 2018 7:15 PM

Where would Southern culture be without the tomato? One of the earliest references in American cookery appears in the private journals of Harriott Pinckney Horry of Hampton Plantation. By 1770, she was collecting receipts in a journal that became an invaluable household document about colonial life in the Santee Delta of South Carolina, especially during the Revolution, when she managed the property. Her house served as a refuge for women and children fleeing the British occupation, and it was in her fields where Brigadier General Francis Marion, known as the Swamp Fox, hid when enemy troops arrived at her door to search for him.
posted by MovableBookLady (12 comments total)

OKAY I'm from the South and not trying to take things away from it, but have y'all considered that if you grow tomatoes in a place that doesn't get enough sunshine for the fruit to properly ripen, you can have fried green tomatoes all the way into October?

Mmm, tomatoes. Thanks for posting the article -- I'm looking forward to digging into the rest of the site.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:27 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

A Hunger for Tomatoes

that's what the red aphids have in my garden darn them all

garden grumbles aside this a beautiful and timely article. Lots of good context, and wonderful photos.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:14 PM on September 26, 2018

We used to get two bushels of tomatoes from a nearby farm: One to can and one to eat. We'd have tomato sandwiches and salads every day. One year we got extra and also didn't get through the whole eatin' bushel, and Mom brewed up a batch of homemade ketchup. Mmmmmmmmmmmm
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:27 PM on September 26, 2018

There's only two things that money can't buy, and that's true love and home grown tomatoes.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:34 PM on September 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

Where would Southern culture be without the tomato?

Standing over a sink with a mayo sandwich, feelin' like a damn fool.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:35 PM on September 26, 2018 [12 favorites]

I still remember the summer we grew cherry tomatoes in our garden in Tennessee—or more precisely, I remember the following spring, when my father had to take a flame thrower (literally!)* to the garden lest the family plantation** succumb to some Day of the Triffids style nightmare.  Perhaps getting so many of them thrown at me by my older brother at high velocity the previous summer is why I, despite being a Southerner, never developed much taste for them.

*OK, OK, so it was more like a flame dribbler, but that doesn't sound nearly as exciting as it was to child-me.
**Not an actual plantation. Jeez, it was a ranch house in a subdivision if you must know.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 9:46 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: Standing over a sink with a mayo sandwich, feelin' like a damn fool.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:53 PM on September 26, 2018 [9 favorites]

have y'all considered that if you grow tomatoes in a place that doesn't get enough sunshine for the fruit to properly ripen, you can have fried green tomatoes all the way into October?

I might be missing the joke, but I'm pretty sure you can anyway? I live in sunny CA and my (indeterminate) tomato plants keep putting out green fruit even as the older fruit ripens. I've never loved fried green tomatoes enough to pick a tomato that would ripen later, so the one time I make fried green tomatoes is in November when there isn't much hope left...
posted by aws17576 at 10:46 PM on September 26, 2018

Mom and Grandma used to make the most amazing green-tomato mincemeat. I wonder if Mom still has the recipe.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:55 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I grew up in New York, but my mom's from Florida, and she grew tomatoes in the backyard, griping about that damn red clay soil the whole time. She taught me to eat tomato sandwiches. Truly, there is nothing finer.
posted by corvikate at 6:33 AM on September 27, 2018

I would like to have a word with the editor of that piece.

A tall man with thinning white hair and gnarled hands, the 91-year-old retired tomato farmer descends from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and is a distant cousin to Harriott Pinckney Horry, too.

Harriott Pinckney Horry was Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's little sister. Why not just say that Charles and Harriott were siblings, instead of that clunky thing about being a distant cousin?
posted by fedward at 9:06 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don't need to rtfa, the answer is clearly: Better.

Pff. Tomatoes!
posted by ipsative at 2:10 PM on September 27, 2018