how to tomato

eat like a river girl, tomato like you mean it

In case you were wondering, and as a tomato gal I do hope so, the best way to tomato is thick drippy slices on top of mayonnaise on top of toasted sourdough. Maybe a crank of the pepper mill, otherwise have at it. NO SALT. And I’m only calling it sourdough because white bread, the kind I grew up on anyway, is spongy and if the bread can be wrung out like a beach towel it’s no use for tomato juice. I don’t want to give the wrong impression when it comes to the bread.

Goes without saying: tomatoes are a seasonal gig. The no salt rule is because that’s where the mayo comes in. I live in a home of mayo-haters but even they oblige me this. Do not tell them the mac salad has mayo, also the cole slaw they clamor for, also the potato salad; just don’t try, I have, it’s no use, they are in mayo denial.

About the mayo: whatever with the Duke’s, which nobody had heard of, looking at you cheffy folks, until Sean Brock. I am from the south and we are mayo-driven, plain and simple, spewed outta little squeeze packets if need be, thin-spread if you’re my sister (see again: mayo dislikers unite over tomato + mayo on bread), hell, it can be Hellman’s or Kewpie, but no, never the ick called Miracle Whip. Is Tang oj? Certainly, you can whisk up your own, which is my go-to, and look, I don’t even make my own salad dressing, that’s how easy.

Fun fact: it’s not the mayo at the picnic that you have to worry about, and I know this from all those river trips, 19 years’ worth, of 100+ degree hot days and the mayo jar on the lunch buffet put back into the cooler. We were in the business of making sure our passengers came out alive, also, we ate the food too.

Pro-tip: glass jars do not appreciate having a metal knife dropped straight into them, please gently place the knife back in after using. I like tomato & mayo so much I use a bona fide tool called a sandwich spreader. For a buck ninety-nine it brings me joy (I only began using it as intended when I brought one home from my chocolate kitchen, where I use them for multiple scraping-down-the-chocolate purposes).

Another pro-tip: add water to the empty mayo jar and let it sit a bit and rinsing will be easier.

A weird river story: we used to play a truly awful game called Who Has to Drink the Mayo Water, sort of a beer pong-esque horror.

Now let’s get to the meat, and yes, this is a plant-based post, no meat for miles: tomato should be meaty, which is to say, ripe yet firm, with a teensy give. Think a thigh that gets exercise (human thigh, not chicken) but! isn’t a super fiend about said exercise. The pro-tip of all pro-tips cometh: in the Grand Canyon we traveled downriver for two weeks, no re-supply whatsoever, with every iota of everything we’d need to feed 26+ people: ahi tuna steaks, lettuce, cheese, bananas, pineapples for fruit salad, chicken breasts, half-n-half, and so forth. We ate the loveliest tomatoes every single day at lunch, and every single day of every single one of the 99 trips I rowed, the passengers would remark with amazement and glee about our perfectly ripe tomatoes.

Here’s how: in our case we needed a boatload. In your case, maybe the farmstand has a bounty or your vines overflow. Or use this later, if you live in Oregon and your vines won’t have tomatoes on them until the day before the first cold snap in September.

Use a plastic milk crate (the airyness is key), have rectangles of cardboard cut to fit the crate at the ready. Place a piece of cardboard in the crate then a single layer of the green rock version of not-yet-ripe tomatoes, repeat, making sure the top-most layer will be your “ripest” tomatoes; in other words, the ones you’ll grab first. Tomatoes like to ripen and sweeten in the dark, and a bit of cool doesn’t hurt. If, as you reach the bottom layer toward the end of your trip (or the end of your home tomato supply) there are a few red Santas with white beards, chuck those into the compost, feed to Miss Moneypenny the hen, etc.

To tomato: slice into thick slices. Toast your bread. Spread mayo onto the bread. Add a layer of slices. Eat open-face or if you insist on the sandwiching aspect, mayo a second slice of toasted bread, position on top.

If your toms are truly ripe as they should be, and as we deserve in this era of food that’s not actually food (looking at you, Cheetos), ditch the white tee-shirt, wear a bandana under your chin if need be. I like to eat mine sitting in the sand with my feet in the river, leaning into those beautifully fleeting summer ripples, drip by drip.