Remembering My First Taste

I can remember the first time that I ate a tomato.

Okay, it is one of my earliest memories and is probably more of an impression than a fixed memory we have when we’re older.  I think I was three years old, and it was summertime.  My brother was born when I was four, so I doubt my mom had the energy for a vegetable garden that year, which is why I’m guessing I was three.

The sun was warm on the top of my head, I can remember that sensation clearly, the way it was heating the hair on my crown.  I tried to get into the shade of the tomato plant, but there wasn’t enough foliage for shade.  It was another hot summer day in the South.  The tomato was still warm from the sun, and when I sniffed where it had been attached to the vine, it smelled spicy and green.

When I bit into the tomato, the moment when the skin gave way and I tasted the sweet and tangy complexity of a tomato for the first time, I knew I would be stealing many more from Mr. McGregor’s garden.  After the first bite, I sucked out the juice and seeds, causing the skin to wrinkle like my fingers in the swimming pool.  I ate the rest of the tomato like an apple, wolfing down meaty bites of the wonderfully acidic yet sweet fruit (but I thought it was a vegetable for a long time.)

My mouth is already watering at the memory of it.  I’m looking forward to summertime this year.  There’s nothing like a vine-ripened tomato, still warm from the sun.

And for your viewing pleasure, here’s some totally adorable kids and their first impressions of tasting fun foods, such as pickles, lemons, and olives.

Also, that crap they sell in the grocery store and call tomato sauce is a lie.  I challenge you to find one that isn’t packed to the gills with sugar, and not just any sugar, but the most terrible of terribles — high fructose corn syrup.  I don’t think that should be in my spaghetti sauce, do you?