Tomatoes - Sentimental Sunday No. 19

photo from i.ehow.com

Nothing tastes more like summer than home grown tomatoes. My father grew the most amazing tomatoes every summer. They were huge and juicy and full of flavor. Funny thing was that he didn’t eat tomatoes. He hated them. Would pick them out of salad, didn’t want them on hamburgers, and would never think of eating one by itself. But, he loved salsa, catsup, and spaghetti sauce. Mom and I were lucky that he liked growing them – and did so for us.

My Godfather, Orie, grew fantastic tomatoes too. After Dad had passed, Orie gave me some tomatoes one day when I was visiting him. They were so wonderful. I remember making a tomato and cheddar cheese sandwich. It was truly the best tasting sandwich I ever had. I can still recall the flavor of a warm summer day on bread. It was fantastic.

Dad and Orie both tended their tomato gardens with great care. And, Orie believed if the plants didn’t bear enough fruit you merely had to yell at them in Italian and threaten to cut them down… then they would bear fruit. Hey, it worked for him. He had a plum tree that didn’t bear fruit for YEARS. He finally got tired of it “just sitting there”. So, about the time the blossoms should have started to appear – he went out back and yelled at it… in Italian. He told it that if it didn’t bear fruit that year he was going to cut it down. That darned tree gave more plums than you have EVER seen. I think half of them ended up rotting because there just weren’t enough people in the family to take the plums. I made jar after jar of plum jam out of them. It was delicious.

Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have the “green thumb” when it comes to tomatoes. We attempt to grow them every year – and they just don’t want to give us much in the way of ripe delicious tomatoes. Hmm… maybe I need to learn Italian!