Tomatoes: Worth their wait.
Why do I get so excited about tomatoes? Because of the wait. I don’t eat tomatoes in winter, or spring, or even late fall. I eat them in season.
A few years ago, I read an article that changed my life. It was Barry Estabrook’s article published in Gourmet Magazine in 2009, but I was reading a .pdf from the course notes of a Food Studies class at the New School. The article exposes the inhumane treatment of migrant workers harvesting tomatoes in Florida. Then Editor of Gourmet, Ruth Reichel claims it was one of her proudest achievements as publisher, to get that article in print. Estabrook not only argues to abolish these practices, but also questions why we are buying these flavorless tomatoes in the first place. The spark notes version goes like this: 1/3 of tomatoes grown in the US are grown in Florida and are picked by slaves, especially winter tomatoes.
Migrant workers are conned into contracts, purposefully indebted to their captors and are physically harmed if they do not work or if they try to escape. They earn cents per 50 lb bushel of tomatoes picked, have no job security or healthcare and must pay exorbitant prices to rent the shanty houses they are provided. I read the article (late to the game in 2015) and decided that I needed to act. My first step in conscious eating was boycotting fresh tomatoes in winter. But Estabrook brings up an important point. What was I really missing? The answer is nothing. “Supermarket produce sections overflow with bins of perfect red-orange tomatoes even during the coldest months—never mind that they are all but tasteless.” He writes. I concur with Estabrook. A winter tomato is a watery mealy mess and I do not miss them one bit.
On the contrary, my limits made me more ravenous for the perfect juicy succulent tomatoes when I had the chance. In summer, I only wanted the most beautiful heirloom varieties; and when I could I gorged myself on them. That is when I decided to grow my own. I needed my tomato fix right outside my door. I decided to grow organically for best results, and I knew that a long time on the vine led to better tomatoes. My flavour theory paid off. What I learned was, there is nothing like picking a still warm tomato off the vine, sliced, with coarse salt on a piece of crunchy toast. My home-grown tomatoes were some of the best I’d had in my life.
Good luck for all of us, this is the consumption model that Estabrook recommends, and he literally wrote the book on Tomatoes. “In the warm months, the best solution is to follow that old mantra: buy seasonal, local, and small-scale,” He recommends. And other studies agree with this model as well. Researchers in Europe compared the environmental footprint of different growing methods for tomatoes in Austria. They compared warm seasonal outdoor growing to winter growing in greenhouses or winter growing in other climates. Their “results show that imported tomatoes from Spain and Italy have two times lower greenhouse gas emissions than those produced in Austria in capital-intensive heated systems,” meaning that the transported tomatoes have a lower footprint than those grown in greenhouses in Austria. But the lowest footprint of all were tomatoes grown in season in Austria. The researchers found that “tomatoes from Spain and Italy were found to have 3.7 to 4.7 times higher greenhouse gas emissions in comparison to less-intensive organic production systems in Austria.” Suggesting that if you want a good tomato, not one that’s picked green and turned red with Ethylene gas, then you have to be patient.
Studies show the most ecologically ethical solution is ALSO the solution that Estabrook recommends and the most delicious option. Growing your own tomatoes is easy, delicious and ethical! Pay more attention to the produce you eat, usually the most delicious thing is the best for you. In this case, only eating locally grown tomatoes in the summer can save lives! If you are interested in the cause and want to learn more you can search Coalition of Imokalee Workers or go to ciw-online.org. This organization helps to get living wages for migrant workers and protects them from predatory employers. And if you want to learn more about growing tomatoes at home, check out Sprouts in the City!
Sources
Estabrook, Barry. Tomatoland. Andrews McMeel. 2011. E-book.
Estabrook, Barry. Politics of the Plate: The price of tomatoes. Gourmet Magazine 2009. Web. 7/20/2020
Theurl, M.C., Haberl, H., Erb, K. et al. Contrasted greenhouse gas emissions from local versus long-range tomato production. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 34, 593–602 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-013-0171-8