#2: Tomato |

Lots of tomatoes and peppers for salsa making
photo by Val

Preparation:

The films I watched this week are:

Anatomy of a Scene prompt: Jon Chu on Crazy Rich Asians
Food Chains, Dir. Sanjay Rawal
Slow Food Kids: Taste
“We Are Marching Against Injustice” – The March Arrives in Tampa
Lakeland: the Final Day of the March for Rights, Respect and Fair Food

There is so much that is hidden from the everyday public’s eye. Most people have no clue where their food comes from and what it takes to get that food to them. The amount or lack thereof in food workers justice is horrendous. And then you talk about the amount of chemicals put onto our food to keep the pests away. We are currently living in a very backwards way of producing food that is not only slowly killing us as consumers and the workers, but is also killing the ground.

Salsa Preparation

Since I did a tomato tasting last fall in Sarah’s class Eating in Translation, I knew for a fact that raw tomatoes are not my cup of tea. So I decided to make salsas instead.

I went to two local grocery stores in the Milwaukee area. The first was Sendiks, a local grocery store that goes all the way back to 1926 and was started by the Balistreri family who immigrated from Sicily. The second was Outpost Natural Foods, a cooperative based on organic, local, fair trade, and GMO-free values.

Photo by Val

At Sendiks they are smaller, family run grocery store they offer more quality foods than what you would find at a chain store. So I got most of my salsa making supplies here, jalapeno and serrano peppers, red, yellow, and orange peppers, limes, cilantro, red onions, and garlic. I also picked up pineapple and mango here too for my pineapple mango salsa. The tomatoes I picked up here were organic heirloom tomatoes from Canada and Beefsteak tomatoes from Minnesota.
At Outpost I was able to find tomatoes that were from a local farm called JenEhr Family Farm, located just the next county over. I got organic slicer tomatoes and organic San Marzano Paste tomatoes from JenEhr at Outpost.

Making salsa
video by Val

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF3fkLMJFTM/?igshid=1mpgel6yh8ifk

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF3GV1tJU5R/?igshid=8h44wh7skvpf

Making pineapple mango salsa
video by Val

#1	JenEhr Farms Organic Slicer Tomatoes Grown in Wisconsin Pineapple Mango Salsa
#2	Organic Heirloom Tomatoes Grown in Canada Regular Salsa
#3	JenEhr Farms Organic San Marzano Paste Tomatoes Grown in Wisconsin Regular Salsa
#4	Beefsteak Tomatoes Grown in Minnesota Pineapple Mango Salsa
#5	Spicy Tomato Combo

#2a Tasting Lab: Tomato

Salsa Tasting
Photo by Val

There was a strong consensus between everyone I had taste all my salsas, salsas 1, 3, and 5 were always the top ones.
Its very clear that fresh local grown tomatoes are the better, tastier choice.

1New-Tomato-MATRIX-salsa Download

Resources/Required Reading:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vujUpg_X7aWh48Ge38Iz-0DjHjKODbpgjPLYuDSe0iQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

Lab Practice: Tomato Flavor Evaluation

Val’s Notes
Evaluating distinguishing factors between multiple varieties of tomatoes
Supporting ethical and sustainable seed saving practices help us enjoy many more tomatoes
Heirloom
Pink Berkeley
Striped German
Slicing
Big beef
Cherokee purple
Cherry
Sun gold
Black cherry
Saucey
Red racer
Sunrise sauce
Cocktail
Sweet million
Green
Green zebra
Grapes/pears
Five-star grape
Brads atomic
Visual: oblong, ridged, peaked, wrinkly, soft, orb, spherical, creased, symmetrical, translucent, supple, asymmetrical, bumpy, flat, oval, cylindrical, angular, delicate, odd, concave, curvy, bulbous…..
Smell: rich, dank, sour, skunky, floral, herbal, clean, dirty, fruity, wet, earthy, pleasant, stale, sweet, sour, musty, pleasant, fruity, spicy, pungent….
Taste: earthy, sweet, tangy, dirty, harsh, spicy, refreshing, old, simple, flavorless, watery, bitter, flowery, sweet, fruity, botanical…..

#2b: Foodoir: Your Story of Tasting Place

My mother liked to remind revolutionary, Afrocentric, teenage me of these eternally embarrassing moments because she liked to say, “I want you to know no matter how far you go, you need to know how far you’ve come.” Page 28

Another black medieval torture was okra. In our next, kitchen, I remember my grandmother forcing me to eat okra. Page 34

My mother encouraged me to have one bite, but I knew one bite would translate into four bites, so I refused as if I were being sent off to the gulag. Finally, I put a piece in my mouth and marched upstairs to bed, but not before I spat it out in the toilet. Page 34

Food was supposed to be perfect, almost mathematical. I remember being obsessed with the image of a sandwich when we were being taught phonics. It was so perfect and balanced and colorful that I had the idea in my head that food was supposed to be ideal and not rough; tidy and not confusing. Page 35

My first task was to be the official taster when Grammy prepared meals, I learned bite by bite the proprietary taste of our favorite dishes. This was followed by the rolling of dough and cutting biscuits out with a floured mason jar. Page 36

I slowly learned that the best food was homemade, fresh, and from scratch. Page 36
–MICHAEL TWITTY

Trigger Warning!

My mom (Katie Dreyer) and me

In kindergarten I became the pickiest eater out there, I went from eating hamburgers and egg salad to not eating really besides pastas and grilled cheese. It wouldn’t be later in life that I would come to realize the reason for my funky texture aversion. I had created a texture aversion on most meats, I stopped eating eggs and fish. It took me a while to be okay with eating chicken strips. For most of my life going out to eat was a problem if there wasn’t chicken strips or grilled cheese. It wasn’t until very recently that I figured out, through therapy, my food texture aversion was brought on my childhood molestation. Since then I have been working on trying and expanding the foods I eat. I still have problems with texture, but I am working on just trying new foods. I now eat a much wider variety of foods and now don’t really have a problem going out to fancy restaurants.

Photos by Val

With my exploration of new foods, I truly have found that fresh is the best. While in Seville, I was able to actually go to real certified slow food restaurant, which just happened to be an Italian restaurant, my favorite. First, I tried fried provolone sticks with a tomato jam. Now I love fried cheese, any kind, but I was not so sure about this tomato jam that came with it. The sweetness of the tomato jam went so well together with the saltiness of the cheese, I was in heaven. I was not prepared for the amount of enjoyment and pleasure I was going to get from my main dish. I ordered sunflower ravioli with buffalo mozzarella, asparagus, lemon, and pesto. The sweet, salty, and sour notes just all hummed together. The fresh pasta, the fresh asparagus tips, the in house made pesto, what could you not love. And I thought I was in heaven before, now I literally think I have died and I am in heaving my first meal. The ambiance, the ability to just be in my own head eating this dish, the amazing wait staff, the great wine, everything just played into this magical dining experience. I honestly ate at this restaurant at least once a week before I was sent home because of covid. In my lifetime, I have eaten at many Italian restaurants and eaten many pasta dishes, but never have I eaten one quite like this dish. I’ve had a similar experience with a margarita in the oldest cocktail bar in Barcelona. Now it’s just another taste and feeling I will forever be chasing; food is now my drug.