Love Apple

Love apple is a fitting description for a fruit with smooth firm skin and luscious ripe flesh exuding an enticing smell and offering the promise of infinite ways to be devoured. There is no vegetable, well technically a fruit, that can quite compare to a homegrown tomato. Many of us go to great lengths to grow them. I am no exception.

Each year I follow the same ritual of choosing the varieties, preparing the beds, planting, laying in the irrigation, mulching, and building the supports. My husband thinks I’m a bit nuts but he’s not a big tomato fan…yet. Although I am an advocate of heirloom varieties I plant hybrid varieties too. Most of the varieties I choose are indeterminate because I have the space for them to grow as big as they like. Each year I build a support structure of bamboo poles and twine. My husband has dubbed it “The Hanoi Hilton” but it is a strong scaffold that keeps the vines off the ground and protected from animals. It also makes harvesting the fruit easier.

Brandywine and Orange Oxheart are two of my favorite heirloom variety tomatoes. These are varieties that my grandmother or even her mother could have planted. Brandywine is in the photo at the top of this post and as you can see it is large, oddly lobe shaped, and cracks easily. But it has a sweet, rich, intense tomato flavor to which most other tomatoes are compared.

Orange Oxheart is a large yellow variety that is actually heart shaped. It is juicy and meaty with fewer seeds and less acidic flavor. It’s a great counterpoint in color and flavor to its red cousins.

At the end of this productive summer I have made countless fresh salsas, Caprese salads, and sauces. I have canned a few jars of pasta sauce and frozen a few tomatoes to add to soup this winter. I lament the looming threat of the first hard frost and the last fresh tomato. That makes the tomatoes I harvest in September, and if the weather cooperates, October that much more precious.


So to do justice to heirloom tomatoes here is an heirloom recipe with a bit more family history in explanation. This photo is Aunt Sophia holding my Mom in about 1915.

My mother’s Aunt Sophia (pronounced So-fee by her niece) has become a culinary legend in our family. Aunt Sophia was my grandmother’s older sister. She never married but dedicated herself to helping my grandparents farm and raise their family. She was the cook of the household, keeping the hearth fires burning while the rest of the family worked the fields or went to school. She died a decade and a half before I was born. I have a few of her recipes written out but most of her legacy has come to me through demonstrations by my Mom who was her kitchen apprentice. I grew up eating this tomato salad. It is classic Aunt Sophia--ingredients at the peak of ripeness with simple preparation. Nothing can be more enduring.

Aunt Sophia’s Tomato Salad

2 pounds fresh homegrown tomatoes, sliced horizontally
I like to use at least two varieties of tomatoes.

1 small red onion, sliced very thin

½ cup cider vinegar

2 teaspoons sugar

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In a small bowl mix the vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. In a larger bowl put the sliced tomatoes and onion. Pour the vinegar mixture over the tomatoes and allow to marinate for about 10 minutes.