Learning to Love Raw Tomatoes

Photo © Rob Jones

Maybe I just got unlucky with the raw tomatoes I got fed as a kid.

On some school salad lunch days, there'd be a slice or two on your plate. You might as well have just run a tissue under the tap & served that.

Nowadays aren't we so blessed with the huge variety of home grown toms of all shapes, sizes & colours. Some are sweet. Some sweeter. Some green. Some purple. Some a combination of both. Others divinely red. Some which need no cutting because they'll explode as you try to slice them.

I think it was a family holiday in France when I was still knee high to a grasshopper that the joy of a plump, squelchy & tasty tomato changed the mindset.

And some salt.

Some market bits & pieces had been bought for lunch, including wine for the parents, not old enough to judge them. Purchased: There was a long baguette, some local cheeses, hard & soft, a blue one, too, & three or four fat tomatoes. The father was keen for me to try them.

Me: "I don't like tomatoes."

MM: "Try one, these are different from the ones back home."

Me: **DubiousExpression**

MM: "Go on, just a little wedge."

Me: "May I have some salt to put on it please?"

MM: **Sighs** "Go on then."

Me: **DigsIn** "Yes, it's a tasty sarnie. The tomato is good."

MM: "Told you."

Since then, whatever type of red, fruity beast beckons for a cob, (Nottingham thing), there will always be some salt crystals as a companion.

AMM