Raw Green Tomatoes

 

I have a confession to make. I think tomatoes are gross. 

They are soft, squishy, things that, when provoked, burst unexpectedly and assail your mouth with a stream of slimy seeds. When even the slightest bit overripe, their flesh decays into a grainy, watery paste. When cooked, they collapse into mush and take on a pungent undertone that somehow always reminds me of vomit.

I never liked tomatoes, but as I grew up, I felt the pressure to expand my palate and eat the nasty slimeballs. I started with tomato soup, which, I discovered to my surprise in high school, was really good with grilled cheese. Then in college, I began allowing a few tomato slices to be added to my sandwiches. Now, as an adult, I put them in recipes when recipes call for them, and have even started growing them in my garden!

This puts me in quite a dilemma. How does a person who thinks tomatoes are only tolerable in moderation, deal with a whole crop of tomatoes darkening her doorstep all at once? Honestly, why would she make such a stupid growing decision in the first place!?

The answer to both those questions is this: she eats them green. And not fried green. Just plain old, straight up, green. And she likes them this way.

For learning that I can enjoy eating raw green tomatoes, I credit this one guy that I dated for a few months last year. One day, I was visiting his house where a crop of tomatoes was growing in pots on the patio. A green one had fallen off the plant. He handed it to me and asked, "Do you want a tomato?"

Well, he and I may not have lasted long enough to get engaged, but at least, to this one question, I said yes! Never one to turn down free food, I took the tomato home and cherished it. By which I mean, I let it sit around while I procrastinated. I figured I'd eventually cook it in the traditional way that one cooks green tomatoes (fried). But my favorite thing to cook is nothing at all, so it is not surprising that the future fried green tomato remained unfried.

Eventually I realized that this tomato's fate was not to be found in the bottom of a skillet, and I was going to have to get creative (read: lazy). I cut the tomato into slices and ate them.

And thus began a new era in my culinary life! The green tomato was much tastier than its ripe counterpart! It wasn't mushy or gritty but possessed a firmness more along the lines of a cucumber or bell pepper (which, by the way, is another vegetable that I have recently learned to appreciate). And its flavor was subtle and tart—none of that confusing semi-sweetness (Hey, are you a vegetable or a fruit? Pick a lane!)* that always throws me for a loop when I eat a red tomato.

This is how all tomatoes should be—taken before their prime and devoured without remorse!

This year, the most successful crop from my garden has been the tomatoes (in spite of my pitiful failures at supporting the plants. Turns out tomato cages are one of those gardening luxuries that might be more of a necessity!). And they've been a steady and reliable source of roughage in my diet for most of the latter half of summer.

By now, I've turned green tomato eating into an art. Every few days, I head out to the tomato plants and give each fruit a gentle tug. Any that falls off is mine to take and transform! I bring them inside, cut them in half, and scoop out the guts. This step is vital, because the seeds in their slimy matrix are one of the grossest things about tomatoes, and the flavor is mellower when the seeds are removed. 

 

Then, because as hollowed-out semi-spheres, they are difficult to bite into and weirdly off-putting, I cut them into bite-sized strips. One more rinse to get out any straggling seeds and slime, and then they are ready to eat! 

 

Even the dog wants these tomatoes! 

But the dog can't have these tomatoes because the last time the dog ate a fallen green tomato, the dog returned the fallen tomato (only slightly less green) back to its original location about 30 minutes later. I guess dog digestive tracts are not made for green tomatoes.

This brings me to an important point about the edibility of green tomatoes. I have some hazy recollection of being told that they are poisonous, which is why people don't eat them raw, so—after eating green tomatoes as my only side dish for several meals running—I decided to double-check. Better late than never, I guess? Multiple sources all confirmed: unripe tomatoes do contain several toxic compounds, but they are in low enough amounts that you'd have to eat a vast quantity of green tomatoes before they would make you sick. A lethal dose is apparently 300 tomatoes, so it's extremely doubtful my little tomato patch is going to kill me. I put more poison into my body every time I drink a margarita!

So yes, my raw tomato consumption will continue unabated until the last underdeveloped fruit has dropped off my last scrawny stem! And then I'll start all over again next summer!

 

 

*People always like to point out that tomatoes (like a good half of the other plant parts we consume including cucumbers, peppers, squash, zucchini, green beans, eggplant, and so forth) are not vegetables but fruits. If that's you, congratulations on your botany degree! You're right—a fruit is scientifically a very specific and categorical plant part. However, there is no corresponding scientific definition for a vegetable, so it's perfectly acceptable to use the term  "vegetable" as described in the dictionary: "a usually herbaceous plant (such as the cabbage, bean, or potato) grown for an edible part that is usually eaten as part of a meal. Also : such an edible part." In fact, by this definition, a fruit would actually be a type of vegetable! Eat that, classification snobs!