At half past seven, the polytunnel is still holding yesterday’s warmth. Outside, the grass is wet enough to soak a shoe. Inside, it smells of tomato leaves and the last stretch of summer.
Jo is working down the row with a pair of old scissors. The fruit at this end is a variety she almost gave up on in June. Too slow to flower, she thought. Too much green. Now the branches are heavy with red tomatoes, a little ribbed, a little lopsided, and sweet in a way that feels almost unreasonable.
The box we weren’t expecting
We came for two crates. We left with four. This is often how a dish begins here: not with a drawing, but with more of something beautiful than we know what to do with.
Back in the kitchen, we sort by touch. The firmest tomatoes will sit on the counter until the evening. The soft ones go into a sieve, chopped with a pinch of salt. Overnight, they give up a clear, amber water that tastes more of tomato than a tomato seems to.
“If it tastes that good standing in a field,
don’t make it work too hard on the plate.”
A dish with almost nothing to hide
For the first course, we cut the ripe fruit into uneven pieces. A few are warmed very gently. A few stay cool. We pour the tomato water around them, add fresh ricotta and finish with a little oil we have infused with fig leaves from the sheltered corner of the garden.
The garden version gets soft white beans in place of the ricotta. They catch the juices beautifully. Both get the same bowl, made by Sam, with a shallow centre and a wide rim the colour of the soil at Jo’s place.
A little of now, for later
The green tomatoes are a different story. We slice them thinly and pickle them for the seed crackers that begin dinner. The smallest red ones go into the slow oven. By the end of the day, they are deeply concentrated and ready to keep under oil.
There is a particular pleasure in opening one of those jars in the middle of winter. For a moment, the kitchen smells like that polytunnel again.
Next week, Jo says, the squash will be ready. We have already cleared a space by the fire.