Thought for Food

Thursday, July 06, 2006

A Week of Salads

I'm stressed, no worse, I'm terribly stressed at the moment. I have no idea why. Thing have not really changed much at work, nor is traffic any worse than it has been during the past year. My private life is completely in order and we have more money now than we have had in years. But still I feel worn out most of the time. As if there was a little leech attached to me that was draining my energy without me noticing. This state of mind has had a serious impact on my cooking this week, namely I didn't feel like doing anything.
The result was a series of salads enriched with all kinds of goodies - crumbled vintage cheddar cheese, anchovies, sun blushed tomatoes, roast garlic or a few thin slices of a lovely Tyrolian speck that that I had brought back from Munich (don't worry, this is not the speck from Alto Adige that I brought home at Christmas; I got two new kinds, both from the Austrian part of Tyrol, in March). And strangely enough, I not only enjoyed the food, but also the time out from cooking. A bit of a creative break that revitalised me.
We also continued the tomato test throughout the week. It confirmed many things we had, but also brought a few surprises. So here are the results:

• The vegetables man's tomatoes came last in all categories.
• Still, money is not everything. The most expensive tomatoes were not always the best.
• Size matters. The cherry tomatoes were better than any others, so in a way, the most expensive tomatoes won. For salads it's worth paying a little extra.
• Vines don't necessarily mean quality. A good tomato off the vine is better than a bad one on the vine.
• Quality can be determined by smell. If they smell of nothing, they will be tasteless. If they smell only of the vine, they might still not be too clever, so smell them without the greenery.
• Sadly, organic does not mean tastier. Dennis came second in all categories even though all his tomatoes are organic. Apparently, they are picked green in Spain and then ripened indoors. Fallon & Byrne's non-organic tomatoes were much tastier by comparison.

And, for anyone who cares, here are our top 3:

1. Fallon & Byrne cherry tomatoes (€3.50/kg)
2. Fallon & Byrne tiger tomatoes (€3.99/kg)
3. Fallon & Byrne plum tomatoes (€2.99/kg)

And the 3 to miss (from worst to most edible):

1. The vegetable man's ordinary tomatoes (€1.50/kg)
2. The vegetable man's vine tomatoes (price unknown)
3. Dennis' ordinary tomato (€3/kg)

But I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the tomatoes yet. The season here in Ireland has not even started yet, so I'll keep testing new varieties as I find them and will keep you posted on any news worth mentioning.

Christine at 9:48 pm

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