Tomatoes

When you grow up in a farm town there are sensory things that burn into your mind.  Me, I remember so clearly the smell of South Jersey dust as trucks hauled produce up and down our Salem County back roads.  Big old stake trucks kicked up tons of dust hanging it in the air.  Living in a glorified swamp there the dust had a musty scent that never went away.

Peppers too had a very distinct smell.  Crisp and green those peppers smelled completely different from what they call green bell peppers today. When you drove by a field of peppers you could imagine them being sautéed with onions and tomatoes in bacon grease in a big old cast iron frying pan. A little bit later sliced boiled potatoes would be added to crisp up making a side dish that was most of the meal.

But the scent I remember most is the smell of tomatoes.  Rich, red and ripe and waiting for hand picking those big monsters had the strongest and tartest smell.  Living near a vegetable packing house I knew the smell of every kind of tomato there was.  I knew the smell of green tomatoes, ripe tomatoes, overripe tomatoes and the vinegary sweet smell of tomatoes that had been squished in crates or discarded in a rot pile.

As I walked to the library tonight I passed a tomato plant.  I grabbed a quick photo and then I leaned in to see if I could get a better angle capturing both the green tomatoes and a couple of the red ones on the plant.  

As I got close I got all those tomato smells.  Some fruits had fallen to the ground and were decaying. Bam, I was hit with the smell of the produce yards.  The ripe tomatoes were really ripe and each smelled like a tomato that was just crying out to be put on a BLT with home baked bread, thick bacon and fresh garden lettuce.  Kraft Mayo too.  And the green tomatoes on that plant had that new, almost waxy smell, with the hint of a sharp scent.  One whiff and I was back out behind my garage watching the trucks roll in and out on a hot summer day.