Sunday, June 29, 2008
Editorial: Fear not the Virginia tomato
The FDA approves of Virginia's tomatoes. So do we.
From the RoundTable blog
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If it weren't for Thomas Jefferson, Americans might foolishly have clung longer to the notion that tomatoes were poisonous. Back in his day, the tomato -- or love apple, as it was also known -- was thought so acidic that it would eat away one's insides. Death would soon follow.
Today, there is similar concern about one's insides reacting violently to tomatoes. For several weeks now, salmonella poisoning has sickened hundreds of Americans, and the federal government has been far too tardy in tracking down the source.
Thankfully, we do know where the tainted tomatoes didn't come from -- Virginia. The commonwealth's tomatoes are just as safe and as savory as when Jefferson picked the first crop from his Monticello gardens.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given its safe-to-eat seal to Virginia tomatoes none too soon. The first bounty from the Eastern Shores' perfect tomato-growing sandy soil is hitting the market.
We've waited too many months chewing on hard, tasteless replicas to be denied.
Little could Thomas Jefferson have known in 1809 what would follow when he first planted the "grudgingly accepted vegetable." But by 1824, according to The Thomas Jefferson Center's Twinleaf Journal, "everyone was eating them because they believed they kept one's blood pure in the heat of summer."
We can't attest to that. But we do know that tomatoes are now Virginia's No. 1 field crop, topping tobacco, soybeans and peanuts, and that we rank fourth nationally behind Florida, California and Georgia.
This we also know: When it comes to Virginia tomatoes, few belong to the what's-all-the-fuss-about camp. The federal government says we eat 22 pounds of tomatoes each year. Much of that is bottled in ketchup or canned in sauce, which speaks to the tomato's versatility. Still, few foods rival the pleasure of biting into a sun-warmed tomato freshly freed from the vine.
It matters little whether one seeks out heirloom plants, spending dismal winter months pouring over seed catalogues and plotting garden arrangements, or is simply stricken with sudden 'mater madness that can be cured only with thick slices slathered in Miracle Whip and wedged between two slices of white bread. For each, joy is packed in a Virginia tomato. Dig in.
