The best ways to eat a tomato

I figure that most of those people who don’t like tomatoes had their first experience eating a restaurant tomato – those hard, tasteless, pink or pale orange excuses for a tomato. My family has been commercially raising tomatoes for a few generations, so I’ve seen a lot of tomatoes and eaten a lot of tomatoes in various ways. Here are some of my favorite ways to dine on this other fruit of the vine.

Eat it like an apple.

• Eat it green and fried. Slice 1/8 inch thin, let the egg and flour batter soak the entire slice, and fry to crispy like a fat chip. Salt to taste. Nothing like that green tomato zing.

• Eat it like an apple. Carry a salt shaker into the tomato field with you. Find a sun-warmed, well-ripened globe and munch. 

• Sliced with cottage cheese on top. Sprinkle with just a little salt and pepper. This is also an attractive way to serve a tomato.

• Slice, then spread with salad dressing. Thinking about salad dressing or mayonnaise on a thickly sliced red tomato makes my mouth water.

• Toss them down like jelly beans. A good, sweet cherry tomato is hard to beat.

• A word about size. Although tomato genetics are always changing and improving, generally speaking, I have found that smaller tomato varieties are often more tasty than large tomatoes.