A ripe tomato is a taste of summer, but get physical before you buy
Tomatoes are a sign of summer for me; it's the colour, the smell, the taste. They seem to smile, and they make me happy.
There are tarty tomatoes, and, regardless of what they cost, they are to be avoided. They are the ones with the lip-gloss red skins, which may attract you but leave you wondering why you bothered with them.
Others come across all stylish. These are the tricky ones, because you think you know what you are getting. But when you get down to business, there is nothing there. No soul. Nothing to get your teeth into. You've been sold a dud.
Before you buy tomatoes you need to get a whiff of that smell, the sweet and meaty all-tomato smell. Then you need to feel the weight, to get a sense of the body. Tasting is not always possible, but it is best.
There are so many varieties to choose from: plum, plain, cherry plum, cherry plain, on the vine, off the vine, organic, non-organic, even nearly but not quite organic. What happened to the pale, tasteless, pappy sandwich filler we all used to loathe? Then somebody gave me a sandwich with just such a phoney interloper, and I remembered the past. It was not good. It was awful, in fact.
As a nation, we went crazy about sun-dried tomatoes, a phase that is now, thankfully, on the wane. My new-found indulgence is oven-dried tomatoes. Aga owners take note: the bottom oven was made for them. They come out sweet and juicy, with a slick of tomato-infused oil and, maybe, a hint of garlic, rosemary or both.
They are not as strong as their sun-dried cousins, but this can be an advantage. The latter are too often reminiscent of tomato concentrate, and, let's face it, most of us are beyond the student days of spag bol, made with a liberal squeeze of a tube of puree.
TOMATO TIP
To oven-dry tomatoes, halve them and set them on a shallow tray. Drizzle them liberally with olive oil, grind lots of black pepper over them and add a generous seasoning of Maldon sea salt. Bake in a low oven, at 140 degrees/gas one, for six to eight hours, or until they look shrivelled and wizened but are still juicy. Serve on a salad, with feta, chicken, grilled meat or fish, or toasted pine nuts. Or just eat them as they are, with a glass of chilled fino sherry.