As we crossed the Delaware River back into Pennsylvania at about two o’clock in the afternoon, Stark got a call from Miller at Greenmarket. They were packing up early. Every last tomato—two tons in total—had been sold. Eckerton had grossed nearly $15,000. Payroll would be made again. For the first time in thirty hours, Stark relaxed, exhaling loudly. “Maybe I’ll get tired of this someday,” he said. “But for me, for now, it seems like the right thing to do.”
epilogue
WILD THINGS
I went to northwestern Peru hoping to find a wild Solanum pimpinellifolium, the progenitor of the tomatoes we eat. But after an hour’s drive north of the regional capital of Trujillo on the Pan American Highway, I figured I would be fortunate to encounter any living plant. The desert stretched away on both sides of the road. From the hazy peaks of the Andes lying to the east, to a gray wall of fog stretching west over the Pacific Ocean, the landscape was devoid of life—not a tree, bush, blade of grass, or cactus to be seen. In comparison, the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts of California and Arizona look like verdant pastures. Roger Chetelat, the tomato geneticist at the University of California Davis, had given me the geographical coordinates of the sites where his research team had spotted wild tomato populations while doing field research in 2009. He had also warned me that my chances of finding one were not great, because of the pressures of urbanization and large-scale agriculture. He had e-mailed a list of local names for S. pimpinellifolium: tomatito (little tomato), tomate cimarrón (wild tomato), tomate del campo (field tomato), tomate de culebras (snake tomato), tomate de zorro (fox tomato), and tomates silvestres (wild tomatoes) to share with my guides. Before we left town, my driver, Carlos Chavez Garcia, read it over, shrugged, and passed it to another driver, who also shrugged. Neither of them recognized any of them.
Chavez and I had not seen a single tomato when he turned his mint-condition twelve-year-old Toyota Corolla off the Pan American Highway and began to negotiate a twisty secondary road that paralleled the Rio Jequetepeque into the Andes. Fed by melting snows from the mountains, rivers such as the Jequetepeque were diverted by the region’s earliest human inhabitants into a network of canals that allowed farming to flourish and civilizations to develop. Some of those same canals are still in use today. Chavez drove past fields of rice, corn, leafy greens, and tomatoes of the domestic variety. But not a single S. pimpinellifolium. As Chetelat had warned, every arable patch of land was tilled, right to the banks of the canals and the edges of the road.
As we rose higher, the farms dwindled, until eventually we were back in a lifeless land of sheer cliffs and boulder-strewn slopes, surrounded on all sides by jagged, barren peaks. Chetelat had given me the coordinates for “a pretty good cluster” just outside Tembladera, a neat little town on the banks of a turquoise-colored reservoir. When my handheld GPS receiver ushered us to the spot he had described, there were no plants, just a steep, rocky valley. Chavez stopped the car and consulted three women who were walking away from town carrying plastic shopping bags. They chattered, gesturing up the valley, and shook their heads. Chavez came back to the car. “Wrong time of year,” he said. “They told me that there were wild tomatoes here in the summer, but not now.” He went on to say that the plants I was looking for were called tomatillos silvestres by locals and that he remembered snacking on them as a boy on his grandmother’s farm outside of Trujillo, but that he hadn’t seen any in years. “They are gone,” he said.
Chavez pulled a U-turn and we began to drive back toward the highway. The car hadn’t traveled fifty yards when I caught a flash of yellow. “Stop!” I cried. Chavez had to continue some distance along the road before the shoulder widened enough for him to get the car halfway off the pavement. He eyed me with skepticism. I trotted back toward where I had seen the flowers. There, growing out of the base of what seemed like a solid rock ledge without a trace of earth was a sprawling, jagged-leafed vine. Easily recognizable as a member of the tomato clan, it was covered in sunny yellow flowers, tiny green fruits, and near its base, bright, red miniature tomatoes not much bigger than cranberries. Catching up to me, Chavez said delightedly, “Tomatillos silvestres!” and began picking them off the vine and popping them into his mouth as fast as he could, pausing occasionally to repeat, “Tomatillos silvestres!”
I picked one for myself and brushed off the road dust with my shirttail. The fruit between my thumb and index finger was as smooth and spherical as a marble. I gave it a squeeze, and it did not yield. I threw it down onto the pavement to see what would happen. It was undamaged, and I popped it into my mouth. The bright, sweet pop of taste was followed by a lingering, pleasant tartness—that essential balance that defines a great tomato.
Notes
INTRODUCTION: ON THE TOMATO TRAIL
If you have ever eaten: Statistics from the Florida Tomato Commission’s Tomato 101, http://www.floridatomatoes.org/facts.html.
Americans bought $5 billion: U.S. Department of Agriculture Economics, Statistics, and Market Information System, U.S. Tomato Statistics, Table 070 and 076. I multiplied the average retail price in 2009 by the total production.
In survey after survey: See Christine M. Bruhn, Nancy Feldman, Carol Garlitz, Janice Harwood, Ernestine Ivans, Mary Marshall, Audrey Riley, Dorothy Thurber, Eunice Williamson, “Consumer Perceptions of Quality: Apricots, Cantaloupes, Peaches, Pears, Strawberries, and Tomatoes,” Journal of Food Quality vol. 14, no. 3 (July 1991): pp. 187–95.
According to analyses: Thomas F. Pawlick, author of The End of Food: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Food Supply—And What You Can Do About It (Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2006), originally presented this information. I have updated it. The 1960s figures come from Bernice K. Watt and Annabel L. Merrill, Composition of Foods: Raw, Processed, Prepared, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Agricultural Handbook No. 8 (Washington, DC, 1964). My source for 2010 figures is the U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 23: http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/SR23/sr23_doc.pdf.
A couple of winters ago: Pawlick (see above) performed a similar “experiment.”
Little wonder that tomatoes are by far the most popular: National Gardening Association, “The Impact of Home and Community Gardening in America” (2009), http://www.gardenresearch.com/index.php?q=show&id=3126.
Regulations actually prohibit: Federal Marketing Order No. 966 sets standards for tomatoes exported from most of Florida during the colder months.
To get a successful crop: Stephen M. Olson and Bielinski Santos. eds., Vegetable Production Handbook for Florida 2010–2011, University of Florida (2010): pp. 295–316.
Not all the chemicals stay behind: The source is the Environmental Working Group, which compiled statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Pesticide Data Program and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Pesticide Monitoring Database.
The industry was nearly dealt: For salmonella losses, see Mickie Anderson, “UF Research Finds Salmonella Responds Differently to Varieties, Ripeness,” University of Florida News, September 21, 2010. For freeze losses see Laura Layden, “Florida Tomato Growers Eye Rebound from 2009–2010 Freeze-Ravaged Season,” Naples Daily News, October 3, 2010. For the effects of glut, see Liam Pleven and Carolyn Cui, “Dying on the Vine: Tomato Prices—Tomatoes Go from Shortage to Glut in a Matter of Weeks,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2010.
This has put a steady downward pressure: Source for wage statistics is the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, http://www.ciw-online.org/Resources/10FactsFigures.pdf.
The owners had crop insurance: Michael Peltier, “The Other Side of the Freeze,” Naples Daily News, February 8, 2010.
And conditions are even worse: See “From the Hands of a Slave” in this book.
Labor protections for workers predate the Great Depression: Farmworkers were specifically exempted from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, a key component of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
; ROOTS
A Chilean soldier was guarding: A January 7, 2010, interview with Roger Chetelat in his office at the University of California Davis provided much of the information on the Atacama Desert expedition and tomato genetics. For a more scientific description, see Roger T. Chetelat, Ricardo A Pertuzé, Luis Faúndez, Elaine B. Graham, and Carl M. Jones, “Distribution, Ecology and Reproductive Biology of Wild Tomatoes and Related Nightshades from the Atacama Desert Region of Northern Chile,” Euphytica vol. 166 (December 25, 2008): pp. 77–93.
The Atacama Desert makes up: See Yuling Bai and Pim Lindhout, “Domestication and Breeding of Tomatoes: What Have We Gained and What Can We Gain in the Future?,” Annals of Botany vol. 100, issue 5 (August 23, 2007): pp. 1085–1094.
one of our favorite vegetables: Hayley Boriss and Henrich Brunke, “Commodity Profile: Tomatoes Fresh Market,” University of California, Agricultural Marketing Resource Center (October 2005).
When Hernán Cortés conquered: For the history of the tomato, I drew on Andrew F. Smith, The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994); and Arthur Allen, Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2010).
Tomatoes’ near-universal popularity: A. W. Livingston, Livingston and the Tomato, forward and appendix by Andrew F. Smith (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998). The autobiography of the great early plant breeder benefits enormously from Smith’s writing and scholarship.
“Well do I remember”: ibid p. 19
Florida was a late comer: For reference to Parry, Wilson, and Blund, see S. Bloem and R. F. Mizell, “Tomato IPM in Florida,” University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension, Publication no. ENY706/IN178, http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in178. For Hendrix, see Benjamin Bahk and Mark Kehoe, “A Survey of Outflow Water Quality from Detention Ponds in Agriculture,” Southwest Florida Water Management District (1977) and http://floridahistory.org/palmetto.htm.
That was around the time: See E. F. Kohman, “Ethylene Treatment of Tomatoes,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (October 1931): pp. 1112–13.
The person most responsible: Statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economics, Statistics, and Market Information System, Table 016, http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1210.
Max Lipman: See Carlene A. Thissen, Immokalee’s Fields of Hope (New York: iUniverse, 2004); also the Web site of Six L’s Packing Company, http://www.sixls.com.
Born in Reading: I am deeply in debt for information about Charles Rick from Arthur Allen, Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2010), which contains an excellent minibiography of the legendary plant science professor. I also drew on an interview and profile written by Craig Canine, “A Matter of Taste: Who Killed the Flavor in America’s Supermarket Tomatoes?” Eating Well (January/February 1991): pp. 40–55.
A TOMATO GROWS IN FLORIDA
When I met Monica Ozores-Hampton: Details about commercial tomato horticulture in Florida in this chapter came from an interview with Ozores-Hampton on June 2, 2010. Any errors are my own. Information about the possible health effects about pesticides was taken from reports of the Pesticide Action Network and in no way reflects Ozores-Hampton’s opinions.
If those roots: The Pesticide Action Network’s database on methyl bromide can be accessed at http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC32864.
more than one hundred chemicals: See Stephen M. Olson and Bielinski Santos, eds., Vegetable Production Handbook for Florida 2010–2011, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (2010), pp. 295–316.
Six of the recommended herbicides: The Pesticide Action Network’s database for agricultural chemicals can be found at http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Search_Chemicals.jsp#ChemSearch.
A distressing number: The Environmental Working Group compiled statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Pesticide Data Program and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Pesticide Monitoring Database. See also Thomas J. Stevens III and Richard L. Kilmer, “A Descriptive and Comparative Analysis of Pesticide Residues Found in Florida Tomatoes and Strawberries,” University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, 1999.
Joseph Procacci agreed to take me: The Procacci interview took place on March 2, 2005.
To see the next phase: Steven A. Sargent, Jeffrey K. Brecht, and Teresa Olczyk, “Handling Florida Vegetables Series: Round and Roma Tomato Types,” University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, 1989, gives a good overview of postharvest tomato packing.
rise to 110 degrees: Jeffrey K. Brecht, a postharvest physiologist at the University of Florida Research Center, made this statement at a workshop for packinghouse managers in 2006: http://www.gladescropcare.com/GCC_TPHMW.pdf.
Despite such sanitation: See Program Information Manual: Retail Food Protection Storage and Handling of Tomatoes, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (June 10, 2010), http://www.fda.gov/food/foodsafety/retailfoodprotection/industryandregulatoryassistanceandtrainingresources/ucm113843.htm; and Martha Roberts, Florida Tomato Committee (in an address to the 2006 Florida Tomato Institute, http://www.gladescropcare.com/GCC_TPHMW.pdf).
CHEMICAL WARFARE
Tower Cabins is a labor camp: “Why Was Carlitos Born This Way?”—the story of the birth defects in Immokalee—was broken on March 13, 2005, in the Palm Beach Post by reporter John Lantigua. I am in debt to Lantigua and his colleagues Christine Stapleton and Christine Evans for many of the details of this tragedy, which might never have come to light had it not been for their doggedness and insightfulness.
But in the lives of tomato workers: Geoffrey M. Calvert, Walter A. Alarcon, Ann Chelminski, Mark S. Crowley, Rosanna Barrett, Adolfo Correa, Sheila Higgins, Hugo L. Leon, Jane Correia, Alan Becker, Ruth M. Allen, and Elizabeth Evans, “Case Report: Three Farmworkers Give Birth to Infants with Birth Defects Closely Grouped in Time and Place—Florida and North Carolina, 2004–2005,” Environmental Health Perspectives vol. 115, no. 5 (May 2007): pp. 787–91.
Many of them were rated “highly toxic”: The Pesticide Action Network’s database for agricultural chemicals is http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Search_Chemicals.jsp#ChemSearch.
“restricted entry intervals”: For a list of pesticides used on tomatoes in Florida and their restricted entry intervals, see “Florida Crop/Pest Management Profiles: Tomatoes,” University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (March 2009). http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pi039.
Although regulations require: These regulations vary depending on which pesticide is used. For the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Worker Protection Standard for Agricultural Pesticides, see http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/twor.html.
As soon as I met him: Much of the background material in this chapter came from a June 2, 2010, interview with Andrew Yaffa.
In terms of raw quantities: “Agricultural Chemical Usage 2006 Vegetable Summary,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service (July 2007).
Employing only about fifty inspectors: “Abundance of Poisons, Shortage of Monitoring,” Palm Beach Post, May, 1, 2005.
workforce of roughly 400,000: “National Agricultural Workers Survey,” U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration, October 5, 2010 (Washington, D.C.).
Together for Agricultural Safety: See Joan Flocks, Leslie Clarke, Stan Albrecht, Carol Bryant, Paul Monaghan, and Holly Baker, “Implementing a Community-Based Social Marketing Project to Improve Agricultural Worker Health,” Environmental Health Perspectives Supplements vol. 109, no. S3 (June 2001): pp. 461–688.
less than 8 percent: John Lantigua, “Why Was Carlitos Born This Way?” Palm Beach Post, March 13, 2005.
leveled eighty-eight counts: Laura Layden, “Judge: Drop Most Violations against Ag-Mart,” Naples Daily News, March 23, 2007.
A scathing portrait: Shelly Davis and Rebecca Schleifer, “Indiff
erence to Safety: Florida’s Investigation into Pesticide Poisoning of Farmworkers,” Farmworker Justice (1998), Washington, DC, http://www.farmworkerjustice.org/pesticides/173-indifference-to-safety.
agricultural workers are more likely to be poisoned: See Worker Health Chartbook, 2004, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institution for Occupational Safety and Health, p. 138. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2004-146/pdfs/2004-146.pdf.
Guadalupe Gonzales III: This information came from “Pesticide Use Inspection Report,” file no. 101-266-4076, “Gonzales III, Guadalupe,” acquired through a public records request to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs.
virtually no hard scientific research: See “Improvements Needed to Ensure the Safety of Farmworkers and Their Children,” U.S. General Accounting Office (March 2000), http://www.gao.gov/new.items/rc00040.pdf.
Leaning on her cane: I interviewed Linda Lee and Jeannie Economos on June 3, 2010.
In a survey of workers conducted: Ron Habin, “Lake Apopka Farmworkers Environmental Health Project Report on Community Health Survey,” Farmworker Association of Florida (May 2006).
Located fifteen miles northwest of Orlando: “Lake Apopka Timeline,” Friends of Lake Apopka, http://www.fola.org/PDFs/LakeApopkaTimeline.pdf.
In one sweet deal: Edward Ericson Jr., “A Cool Deal, Going Once, Going Twice,” Orlando Weekly, December 12, 1998.
researchers determined that the cause of the deaths was pesticide poisoning: See “Final Lake Apopka Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan,” United States Fish and Wildlife Service (June 2004). http://restoration.doi.gov/Case_Docs/Restoration_Docs/plans/FL_Lake_Apopka_RP_06-04.pdf.
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