Eating Off Season Tomatoes

We're so close. So close. I can almost taste it and it's summer boiled down to a sweet tomato. I worry about people out there, eating grainy tomatoes in the dead of winter. Or in the summer when they almost taste good but they're missing the dewy earthly flavors they have when they're in season. But people do it and I just can't fight it. So I'll help. Here's some tomato tips:

If you have some pale and sad tomatoes, put them in a brown paper bag overnight with a pretty ripe banana. Close the bag, in the morning they'll be redder inside and out, they may even taste a bit better.

If you eat tomatoes off season, it's best to dry them out in the oven for a number of hours at a low temperature with some herbs, sea salt and a sprinkling of olive oil.

Smaller cherry and plum tomatoes are always more sweet and rewarding off season.
They are best slow poached in the oven, swimming an inch of olive oil with herbs and sea salt.

If you smell a tomato and it smells like one, it has a better chance of tasting good.


When is tomato season? In my book it's very late July to early September, when they look like they're about to burst and often do in the bag on the way home from the Market.