My Life with Tomatoes

I have had quite a large amount of obsessions in my life, some of them were normal-ish obsessions for a child, some of them weren't.  One of the stranger obsessions I had was with tomatoes.  Yes, the strange, round, red food that seem to defy even definition as a fruit or vegetable, and squish out their red guts when you smush them.  Why did I love them so?  I'm not really sure, I think it had something to do with being a very easily entertained child.

Phase 1
Tomatoes first caught my attention as a very young child.  My mother planted cherry tomatoes, and as all cherry tomatoes seem to do, they flourished, and grew, and flourished, and eventually became so prevalent they were almost a weed.  There were so many small spherical red balls I could hardly contain my excitement.  Although, as it would happen, I didn't particularly love eating them myself.  Instead I decided to share the prevalent goodness with everyone I came into contact with.

The first problem, or perhaps largest problem, with this plan was my eagerness.  A basket was too hard to find, or too far away—or perhaps never even entered my mind to begin with. I picked a handful of tomatoes and then realized that I had nowhere to put them — oh, but I did.  



Pockets, yes!  I had pockets!  In the cherry tomatoes went.

My mother got sick of cherry tomatoes.

Eventually I decided to stop sharing my tomatoes with my parents and turned to a new tactic.  I decided to save the squished, seedy goodness for any neighbors that happened to visit.  I'd run up to them, pockets brimming over with bruised and dripping tomatoes, then I'd proffer them a handful.

Children do not realize how unappealing squashed tomatoes can be—even fresh picked, sun-grown tomatoes have their limits. 

Phase 2
I would like to say that after I finally grew out of my first phase of cherry tomato love I forgot all about them and finally began living a more normal childhood—but I didn't.  Instead of loving them I decided that I abhorred them.  There could be no vegetable or fruit more disgusting than a tomato.

Unfortunately my mother is a great endorser of tomatoes, she believes that they are good for children to eat—which is probably true.  She put them on sandwiches, she put them in sauces (I decided to savagely loath spaghetti for this reason), she diced them up and put them in salads (although this was not really a problem because I didn't believe in eating lettuce either).  We played the same game over and over again: She told me to eat them, I refused.

We finally reached a compromise with the grilled cheese sandwich.  She would let me eat cheese sandwiches (which I loved), if I would eat two or three slices of tomato on it.

Using my sagely wisdom I deduced the best way to go about eating the allotted tomatoes.  What you should do when you have a food you hate and another food that you love is to eat the nasty food first, then you can enjoy the tasty food you like afterwords.  I'd pick off my tomato slices and eat those ghastly bites first, then I'd enjoy the rest of my cheese sandwich untainted—except for the occasional escapist tomato seed.

Phase 3
I can't decide if I liked tomatoes during this phase or not.  This phase includes a lot of tomato soup, which I adored.  However, my version of tomato soup was to stuff my bowl past the brim with saltine crackers and then mash them all into my soup bowl, all bloated and soft and goopy until my dinner resembled a red and pink swamp.  Somehow this was more appealing than eating the soup the way it is usually served. 

I think children just like mixing all their different foods together.  If peanut butter and bananas are both good, then they must be better mixed together.  If tomato soup and saltine crackers are good, they must be better mixed together.  If lemon and strawberry yogurt are good on their own they definitely must be better mixed together—yes, I tried this, repeatedly.  I also tried mixing together every different kind of ice-cream I could get my hands on.  My family would buy three, or four, or five different flavors of ice-cream at a time, then, on special occasions, we'd put them out and let everyone get the kind of ice-cream they wanted.  Little children want everything.  I would not only get every flavor (strawberry, chocolate moose tracks, peach, mint, and butter pecan), but I would mix all of them together until there was not a swirl of color left, melted brownish goop with pecans and small chunks of strawberries was the only way to eat ice-cream.  That way you were able to enjoy absolutely none of the flavor all at the same time.  Perfect.

Now
Currently I neither love nor disdain tomatoes.  I like them better freshly picked off of the vine from a garden, although sometimes I am still a little doubtful when I'm served spaghetti sauce.  I like to think I have gotten past my phase of abhorring vegetables and fruits, and moved on to a healthier lifestyle that includes both.