Inside the mouths and bellies and minds of Southerners, a war has been raging for years. OK, the conflict has mostly been in my own mind, but I did my best to start a bigger fight.
The object of contention involves regional pride, a little Solanum lycopersicum hubris and the third cousins of chili peppers, potatoes, tobacco and eggplants. The Tomato War was fought mostly in my own imagination because I could find few people willing to get into a seed-spitter over the differences I was trying to point out: Texture, earthy complexity, pure old tomatoey taste.
Being from LA (Lower Alabama, to those of you unfamiliar with the Wiregrass area of that state), I pitted South Alabama tomatoes against Hanover County tomatoes at every opportunity. I John Browned and Fort Sumtered the Tomato War with as much fervor as I could slice while here in Virginia and bad-mouthed the Hanover tomato every time I went down to Dixie – a red-stained Don Quixote swinging at swollen orbs in the humidity.
From the moment we moved to Mechanicsville and I witnessed the agricultural tyranny practiced by uber-proud Hanover tomato growers and addicts, I stewed. Hanoverians looked down their noses at other tomatoes. Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta endorsed the Hanover version. Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee probably fought because of them. These poor, misguided tomato lovers just didn’t understand the truth of a real tomato.
South Alabama tomatoes were just plain better than the precious Hanover fruit, and I heartily claimed that reality to any Virginian who would listen (that last part being the difficult end of the sentence, as few actually did listen). They looked at me like I was trying to give away free tickets to a Michael Moore movie at Lee-Davis High School.
Now don’t misunderstand me; I love Hanover tomatoes and eat as many as possible. But compared to South Alabama’s vine-hangers, they are tasty wannabes. And I aimed to prove it.
A few weeks ago (in honor of the Hanover Tomato Festival), I took a bunch of Hanover’s finest down to South Alabama and put them to the test with some real “tamater” experts. I was careful not to get my warring reds mixed up because, quite honestly, they all look exactly alike. I put one South Alabama tomato beside one Hanover tomato and served them to several people who refused to let me use their names, which just added to the sneaky authenticity of the experiment – unknown people eating unknown tomatoes. Sounds like lunch in Scooter Libby’s office.
In the blind tomato test, to my sickened astonishment, the Hanover tomato won five out of six matches. I was devastated. I found three more unusual suspects (relatives of mine this time – a shameless attempt to stack the slices in my favor) and tried again. All three picked the Hanover tomatoes, even though they had no idea which tomato was from where.
Undeterred, I brought a bag of fresh South Alabama tomatoes back up to Hanover this weekend and did the same test with several unnamed victims here. Same results. 2,000 miles of driving, and the Hanover tomato won both contests. I couldn’t even celebrate the Fourth with those cheap bottle rockets I snagged in South Carolina, purchased just for my assumed victory. I was ashamed and demoralized and just plain tomato-red-faced.
Then something rather moronic hit me right between the tomatoes: I had never actually taken my own taste test. I was arguing from tongue memory. So I left the room and asked my wife to take one of each tomato, carve them up and place them on two plates, making sure she remembered which was which. I tried the one on the left – an astonishingly fine tomato. I washed my mouth with Coca-Cola (unscientific but effective) and went for the other plate – a darned good tomato, to be sure, but not as sweet or complex as the first. I voted for the first one, knowing (OK, hoping) in my heart it was my beloved ‘Bama tomato. Had to be. I remembered the taste from my youth. I looked at my wife.
“You liked the Hanover tomato best,” she said.
Smack. Betrayed by my own tongue. I know what is coming now. Soon, I won’t be able to tell the difference between Dr Pepper and Mr Pibb or Cher and Barbra Streisand. It’s pitiful.
For me, after 12 years, the Tomato War is finally over. I celebrated the truce with a sloppy BLT using both combatants and washed it all down with a Dr Pep, errr, wait, a Mr Pibb, I think.
