In the summer time in South Carolina, the rich red Southern
earth produced the sweetest tomatoes on god’s green earth, her father used to
say. She loved the red beefeaters, the dark orange oblong tomatoes her mother
used to make salsa, she loved the funky green smell of tomato plants – fresh
after the rain – so beautiful she had once bought a perfume called “tomato” so
she could smell like that plant. The feel of the warm prickly stems that
cradled that delicious fruit when you were sent out in the morning to harvest
the fresh ones. The best way to eat them, it was commonly agreed was to pick
them fresh and hot out of the garden, or freshly purchased from the old man who
sold them on the highway turnoff to John’s Island. You took some white bread,
it didn’t matter what kind – even wonder bread was fine, and a lash of Miracle
Whip (although fancy people sometimes used Duke’s mayonnaise), and then just
slices of that luscious tomato with a little salt on top. It was best to eat
these drippy delicious slices of sunshine over the kitchen sink, leaning
forward so as not to ruin your shirt. The sweet warm taste of the tomato,
slightly salted, summoned up long summer days lounging by the pool, or swimming
at the beach, or just sitting with her mother and father in the air conditioned
dining room when her mother just didn’t feel like cooking. Tomato sandwiches
and sweet tea.
