Tomatoes, lightly salted, still warm from the sun.
Corn, practically boiled on the stalk, with plenty of butter.
Snap-beans, "prepared" by the boys to keep us the hell out of the way.
All from my grandma's garden, with sun tea, some small cut of meat, and home-made ice cream guaranteed to brain-freeze you into a vanilla coma.
For pennies we had summer meals that have lasted a lifetime.
So yeah, Hubris, "When the dollar a pound plain old ordinary tomato that we used to eat with dinner some 20 or 30 years ago is $8 and treated like a luxury item..." we are indeed in trouble.
Tomatoes! I agree, getting a decent tomato at a good price is difficult (fortunately, with the farmshare, we're being spoiled), but getting things like decent cheese at a reasonable price is something of a task as well. Remember when bread and cheese was partial punishment? These days, if you can get decent bread and cheese, you're on to a winner.
Hmmmm. I have the same problem. I like REAL vegetables when I eat them, and real tomatoes are few and far between here in the DC area.
I've found the best produce is at the farmer's markets.
Man, you ain't kiddin'. For years I thought my taste buds had dried up, or sumptin'. Tomatoes just had no taste for me, and chikkin tasted like a Florida tomato (think "sawdust").
Then, on a trip to Holland I happened to eat at a friend's house where real garden-grown tomatoes were served along with chicken from the local meat market.
What a revalation. Wasn't my taste buds after all. We just get tasteless food here. Try Dawe Egbert coffee sometime if you can get it. Starbux at home I tell you.
you gotta all do some reading on this... it is both better and worse than you think...
the food related movements are huge but still disjointed and we need good political bloggers like yourselves getting the word out.
big ag, and corporate meat, HFCS and trans fats are killing us and our kids. packaged foods and trucked tomatoes that go thousands of miles before getting to your supermarket are the issue
I reccommend reading Barbara Kingslover's new book
Animal Vegetable Miracle as a starter. She is both dead serious and upbeat about solutions.
the best thing about getting into this stuff is when you eat locally and learn where the good food is - It tastes better! so it is a win win all around.
For a minute there, I thought you were writing about your gardening experience as in the $64 Tomato
this subject could a blog all to itself
with tomatoes, it is not just taste, the non-organic ones also apparently have fewer antioxidants, if a recent study reported in the media is to be believed
grow your own tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets. that's all the soil they need. read up on organic fertilizer materials in the library. can't beat organic tomatoes fresh off the vine!
Jesus. Learn apostrophes, people.
ah, nothing brightens my day like a chance to use my mad Google skillz for Good
Unfortunately, it's too many links.
so...
Find a farmer's market in your area @ USDA.gov
find a farmer's market in your state, same site
find a farmer's market with organic produce near you
an organization for farmer's markets who take nutrition program scrip
nationwide, local or by zip code
fruitstands by state
No, no (waves hand). It's enough just to rock.
Yes, the first time I tried a neighbor's organic garden tomatoes, I was like, why can't all tomatoes taste like this? The answer is that most tomatoes are grown in dead, crumbly soil that has petroleum poured into it to create a facsimilie of fertility.
Tomatoes, like all vegetables, have their time, and this is it.
You can get good tomatoes right now in any decent farmer's market, and even in a good supermarket, but their time is short, you have two maybe three weeks, max.
As for other foodstuffs, if your meat comes on a little styrofoam tray, you may as well eat sawdust, you need to make sure you're buying free range grain fed chicken, and if possible grass rather than grain-fed beef. Under no circumstances should you be eating beef that has been fed anything other than grass or grain. Google spongiform encephalopathies. MOST forms of animal protein in cattle feed has been banned, but not all. Think not only about what we don't know, but that people cheat in every activity they undertake.
As for bread, regular choices today in any supermarket are far superior to when I was a kid, and my cheese and dairy options are pretty good too, but it all comes with a price. Thankfully not as crazy as $8 for a tomato.
BTW, since the Mets won and the Yankees lost today, I think I'll remember an old friend by quoting him:
Oh yeah, fuck the fucking Yankees.
Man do I miss Steve.
Who, would Jesus apostrophize!
Anybody who pays $8 for any one tomato is completelely and totally fucked.
I assume you bought this tomato in Japan. What hasn't been mentioned is that the tomato costs so much because the dollar ain't worth a sh:t these days.
The cherry and beefsteak tomatoes at Moosehall are just about ripe. I wish I could mail some to everybody, the cherry tomatoes are as sweet as grapes!
Next year, tho, we are turning over our entire property, (the entire 100 sq. ft. of it) to the production of grass, to be dried into straw.
In an election year, the demand for straw men goes through the roof. I want to be ready.
L&L, I had the same experience when I tasted my then-neighbor's backyard tomatoes, 20-plus years ago. No wonder I ate around salad tomatoes. We shared corn, squash, beans, early girl and plum tomatoes.
Renee's Garden Seeds has a nice selection of container lettuces and herbs (flowers too), if space is a factor. I grow the baby basil and mesculin lettuces in windowboxes and larger pots to augment my farmers market purchases.
http://www.reneesgarden.com/seed...hm/
vegK.htm#let
... what andrea said. A window box or fire escape can harbor herbs, boutique greens & certain chiles & peppers. I had a neighbor who grew roma tomatoes in plastic tubs on his tenement roof -- one trick was to plant starters in a mix of sterilized compost & manure, and starters were easy to find early in the season at the green markets. Cheap too.
It took me a few seasons to learn the specifics of Southwestern gardening, but this transplant now has early girls & brandywines from June through November on plants so big they almost topple their cages. Add up soil amendments & 8" starters and that's about $8 PER PLANT for 5 months of obscene flavor ... is it lunchtime yet?
Here's some perspective on industrial agriculture.
What's with the spelling and grammar? "A eight-dollar tomato" (not "AN")?? "Tomato's" (not tomatoes)?
Kent, I struggled with that myself.
on vacation in the states last week, tried corn on the cob just picked that morning. Oh. My. God.
I had no idea it tasted like that -I'm used to the canned or frozen or lying on the supermarket shelf since it has been shipped in the week before.(or so they tell us)
LDC: Fresh corn on the cob is ambrosia. Whatever you do, do not boil it in water -- do this instead:
1) Peel back (but don't remove) husk.
2) Strip out corn silk.
3) Smear butter on kernels (and a little ground-up basil if you like).
4) Put husk back in place around cob.
5a) Put on hot grill five minutes, OR:
5b) Put in hot oven for five minutes, OR:
5c) Put in microwave for five minutes. (For the first two options, run water over the outside of the husk once it's been put back around the cob so it doesn't scorch and burn.)
6) Remove husk, set on plate and enjoy. 
Catch the wave and eat like a human being.
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