Little homegrown tomato evokes the stolen fruit of youth

So the other day, I was contemplating a single, luscious, cherry tomato. Ripe. Invitingly red. Juicy. That tiny bit of heaven was the backyard greenhouse's first offering. And not a minute too soon. Winter is just around the corner. That first diminutive piece of fruit cost about $3,500, I figure, but, really, who is counting?

In size, it was no match to the monstrous, vine-stretching beefsteak tomatoes of my youth. My buddies and I, armed with miniature, blue Morton salt shakers and Case pocketknives would raid neighborhood farms' tomato patches like juice-dribbling locusts, eating our weight in the luscious fruit, stuffing them into our pockets, the shouts of "Get the hell out of there," ringing in our ears as we cleared the barbed wire.

[Breed your own Alaska heirloom tomatoes. Start here]

You could feel the sun's warmth in the fruit and taste the soil. They were, well, magnificent.

I never lost my voracious appetite for tomatoes, but living in Alaska presents thorny obstacles to Lycopersicon esculentum aficionados. It seems many, if not most, tomatoes found in grocery store bins here obviously are hydroponically grown and rushed to market to ensure they have no taste. In general, they have the consistency of softballs, the juiciness too, and the wonderful taste of old cardboard. It gets worse as winter approaches. Tomatoes should not, should never, crunch when you bite into them.

Too often, what is available here is an egregious insult to bologna, mayonnaise and bread, and let's face it, the tomato's true calling, after ragù, is the bologna sandwich. Even when you add a paper-thin slice of onion and American cheese product to the mix, then sprinkle on a tiny bit of garlic salt, a lousy tomato makes it all an insult to the palate, to the very sandwich that underpins American culture.

It's not just me; the world loves tomatoes, too. They are its most popular fruit — and they are a fruit, at least botanically. In 1893 the U.S. Supreme Court, defying Mother Nature, ruled in Nix v. Hedden, that, as far as U.S. customs regulations are concerned, tomatoes are vegetables, not fruits.

Vegetable or fruit, the little orbs of goodness were not always held in high esteem in America. Tomato historian — yes, such people exist — Andrew W. Smith says in his book "The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery," that tomatoes' use in colonial America was not commonplace. Tomatoes are in the Solanaceae family, which includes poisonous plants, and many believed them deadly. The Civil War was a game-changer. Easily canned, tomatoes were used to fill Union Army contracts and empty bellies.

Before seedsman Alexander W. Livingston, father of the modern tomato, came along to develop new varieties — including, in 1870, his groundbreaking hybrid, the Paragon — run-of-the-mill tomatoes were much like those found too often on grocery shelves, "small, hollow, tough, watery." At least that is what he said in "Livingston and the Tomato" in 1893.

[Let's make tomatoes great again]

My first try with tomatoes a few years ago produced, yes, that's right, a single, beautiful, red, plump tomato that I ate like a wolf. It was glorious. It was difficult to decide whether it was as good as I thought it was, or just seemed good because I was its daddy.

A second attempt, hanging baskets that time – what could go wrong? – ended in dusty disaster when I went on a trip and forgot to have them watered. Yet another went awry when winter sneaked up and the dining room became an ersatz greenhouse, producing a handful of pitiful, nearly inedible tomatoes.

I am, if nothing else, determined. What was needed for success, for the beginnings of a legendary tomato ranch, was a greenhouse. Buying a tiny one and having it assembled – orangutans do better with tools than I – seemed the thing to do. Of course, I had it erected in the only spot in the backyard that received zip for sunlight. After it was moved, the farming began, likely a month later than it should have.

Knowing little about tomato growing, I got plants, transplanted them into big pots and set sail. Who knew they needed support? Now, the inside of the packed greenhouse is a jungle of tomato plants with a spiderweb of soft ropes and old nylon stockings – not mine, by the way – suspended from the ceiling to support the vines.

But there are tomatoes in there. Lots of tomatoes. Big ones. Little ones. They are just not red ones. Yet. Hopefully, they will have time to get that way.

After eyeing the first to turn red and showing it off, I ate it. It was magnificent. You could, I swear, taste the dirt.

It may not have compared in size to those monstrous beefsteaks of my youth, but it tasted every bit as good.

Paul Jenkins is an editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.

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