So said Gerard, in his Herball or Historie of Plants, 1597, which I was reading this morning – he was a better writer and gardener than you might think from the quote. The love apple is, of course, the tomato.
A good tomato calls to you. I’m serious. Suddenly there’ll be a baking hot day – like yesterday, all freshly washed sunlight, and which seemed twice as hot now that the dust has gone from the air – the sort that sends the cicadas singing and the magpies muttering in the shade. And you’ll hear a voice from the vegie garden – well, not a voice exactly, a sort of song…a sort of scent…a hot soil and tomato smell…and there among the pungent leaves will be the first ripe tomato.
A watched tomato never ripens – well, it does, but it takes a long time. We have long, cool springs here and the tomatoes stay green and swollen for months (this is not an exaggeration) before slowly blushing pink and finally, oh frabjous day, we have one stinker of a hot snap and they turn red.
We’ve been eating tomatoes for over a month now, I think, but the joy of them hasn’t diminished. It is hard to imagine a world without tomatoes, though even early this century they still weren’t popular in most of the Western world.
A good tomato doesn’t need vinegar, not even balsamic, or not more than two drops anyway. It should provide its own acid, its own sweetness, as well as that indefinable pungency that means fresh home-grown tomato.
Even decent varieties of shop-bought tomatoes don’t taste like home-grown ones. A tomato has to be picked hot and soft and as red as it’s ever going to be for the best taste. (So soft you can’t cut it for sandwiches either – those neat round balls in the supermarket are good for something.)
Tomatoes were brought to Europe by Christopher Columbus (along with chillies, syphilis, slaves and a few other odds and ends). The Europeans regarded them with suspicion but liked the look of them. In those days tomatoes were sourish and golden. They were grown purely as ornamentals and went by the name pomo dei mori, meaning ‘apple of the Moors’ or ‘apple of death’, and later as pomme d’amour – ‘love apples’ or aphrodisiacs – and then pomme d’or, which was anglicised to ‘golden apples’. Small kids were warned not to touch.
The suspicion of being an aphrodisiac lasted right up till the end of last century. Actually I’m not sure they aren’t. There’s something about a fat ripe red tomato…
If you’re worried about the tomato’s aphrodisiac properties – especially on the sandwiches of susceptible adolescents – just add a bit of lettuce. According to the medieval herbalist Culpeper (who was not a big fan of the tomato), lettuce is a sure-fire dampener of passions, especially when applied directly. (It would be interesting to see what Bryan would do if I dropped him in lettuce. Laugh, probably.)
The whole garden smells of tomato at the moment – a scent reminiscent of my school days. Everyone seemed to have tomato sandwiches for lunch, and they all went soggy – but no one seemed to mind. (I like soggy sandwiches – especially when it’s hot.) The fermenting rubbish bins were collected from the school once a week, for the pigs. By then they were probably a rather torrid blend of soggy tomato/ banana peel/meat-pie crust hooch. Did the pigs get drunk?
I’m drying tomatoes on aluminium foil at the end of the garden, then bunging them in olive oil with a bit of garlic and basil to keep till we want to impress visitors. None of us really likes dried tomato. Maybe you only really like them if you’ve never tasted that fresh concentrated flavour of a sun-ripened fresh one, and believe the only intense tomato flavour comes when they are dried.
I used to bottle tomatoes, but I don’t bother now…which I will regret come winter, as home-bottled tomatoes have a richness that no tinned tomato has. But the tins are so easy, and there’s so much else to pick and process at this time of year.
We spend six months of year tomato-less (maybe it’s just the sheer glut of tomatoes now that makes me feel like I’ll never really long for a tomato again).
Classic Aussie Tomato Sandwiches
Do kids still eat tomato sandwiches? School bags used to smell of them. There’s a particular pungency about tomato sandwiches baked in a Globite case in greaseproof paper for a minimum of three hours. Grandma’s picnic hamper used to smell of them too.
The secret of a really good tomato sammy is to butter evenly, thickly and everywhere so the juice doesn’t soften the bread prematurely. Add black pepper (pre-ground to follow the classic recipe) and wrap in greaseproof paper.
Store in sunlight for at least three hours so the tomato sweats. Eat warm.
A 1990s Aussie Tomato Sandwich
Take a thick slice of fresh Italian bread. Brush olive oil on both sides. Toast lightly on both sides, top with fresh tomato, with or without bocconcini cheese and lots of torn basil leaves or a thick spread of pesto. Add a touch of grilled eggplant or capsicum preserved in olive oil, chopped garlic chives, thinly sliced artichoke hearts, French beans in vinaigrette…the possibilities are endless.
Heat in the oven or under the grill till it loses its chill, no more – just enough to get the fragrance wafting off the bread. Eat at once.
How to Peel a Tomato
Cut just through the skin, no deeper, from top to bottom and back again, till you’ve divided the tomato into quarters. Now pour boiling water – or even very hot water from the tap – over the tomato for a few seconds. The edges of the cuts will peel back and you can peel the rest of the skin off.
Peeled tomatoes are much nicer sliced on sandwiches and infinitely better in soup and stews (unless they are going to be puréed) – otherwise you end up with wrinkly bits at the bottom.
Tomato Jam
Don’t knock this till you’ve tried it. It’s good.
2 kilograms skinned really red tomatoes (this does not work with insipid ones)
2 kilograms sugar
6 peach leaves or a few sliced almonds
Boil all the ingredients in a large saucepan till a little sets in a saucer of cold water.
Bottle and seal.
February 19
An echidna was nosing up the paving when I came out to feed the chooks this morning…eating the ants in the crevices. It heard me or felt the vibrations of my feet and froze. So I froze too.
It relaxed sooner than I did, waved its nose around searching for my smell and then located it. Stopped, sniffed again, then pondered. Finally it lumbered slowly over to me (ready to freeze again if I moved) and shoved its nose delicately down my shoe. It sniffed again, but didn’t like it; then waddled off to the nice anty bit behind the bathroom.
I’m not sure whether to be insulted or complimented that a creature who loves ants rejects my toes.
February 20
Another storm – bruised clouds hovering at the end of the valley, then suddenly darting up; sharp angry drops that turned into hail in a few minutes, then thankfully melted back into rain. The ground was silver for about ten minutes with a fine sheen of water and then it stopped, as suddenly as it had come, and swept off to drop its offerings on someone else.
February 21
Alan came to breakfast (omelettes with tarragon and cheese and a very little chopped tomato). He’d been visiting his son Cynan, who’s spent the holidays picking down at Wisbey’s till uni starts again. He’s been doing it every Christmas since he was fourteen. (He pretended he was sixteen the first few weeks, and then confessed; but by then Noel had realised he’d got a good worker and kept him on.) Cynan has the sort of muscles you’d imagine a semi-trailer might grow if it went in for weightlifting.
Alan had left Cynan surrounded by capsicums – the whole shed is full of them – green and red and white and black. The hailstones bruised them so badly that if they’re not picked now they’ll rot. If they can get them to the markets in the next day or so they’ll be right. And of course the fruit will be bruised too…
Some of the pickers camp out; some stay in the ‘white house’ – which Cynan says is pretty grotty, with who knows how many sweaty peach pickers there, all too exhausted to do
anything after their day’s work except sleep, eat or go down to the pub.
E takes it for granted he’ll work there in the holidays when he’s old enough; though I don’t know how he’ll feel about it then – the work is hot and peach fuzz makes you itch, and the scratches sometimes turn into great horrible blisters (I suffered from them at one time). The blisters are not, as is rumoured, caused from pesticides and herbicides, but from a bacterium in the soil. Mine reoccurred for months, gradually lessening in severity, and hopefully I’m now resistant, because they’re lousy things to have.
Pudge came out to be admired – she has a sixth sense about visitors, knows just when to arrive to get an extra carrot, and lies there with her legs spread out behind her and her stomach spread along the ground, gnawing her carrot till she falls asleep with her nose in the carrot shavings. (We call it ‘doormat position’ – spread-eagled wombat.) Pudge never bothers with the carrot bits leftover. Wombats aren’t interested in things they can’t get their teeth into.
The omelettes were good – bright yellow, moist and firm at the same time. (The hens have been foraging under the blackberries where it’s still damp, so half their diet must be beetles – beetles transmogrify into good eggs.) I don’t know how anyone manages to make an omelette with battery eggs – they don’t hold together. The whites run all over the place when you break them, and the yolks are too anaemic to thicken anything.
Rose Perfume
Picked flowers in the afternoon – a basket of roses, so I felt almost medieval, and then hop flowers, which sent me giggling and I think I’m still floating from the pollen…hop pollen is a euphoric. The world is shimmering slightly and I still want to chortle at the moon.
The rose petals went into old Vegemite jars and were covered with vodka; which immediately went deep red. (They were delicious fat Papa Meilland roses – my favourite for deep colour and a scent you want to eat.) I’ll add a few lavender flowers tomorrow too – but not too many, as it’ll swamp the roses.
When I finish writing this I’ll strain the vodka, which will now be faintly rose-scented, add fresh petals to it, and stopper again. Then I’ll repeat the whole thing about six times till the vodka smells like Woolies’ perfume counter (but richer and much more subtle).
Homemade perfume really does have a tinge of the sun. There’ll be enough perfume hopefully to add to lotions all winter, and enough to wear behind my ears as well.
February 28
The car felt like a pressure cooker when I went down to pick up E – so hot even the air had escaped, and I was left gasping. E was hot and cross from too many sweaty bodies in the bus, and the heat glaring off asphalt playgrounds; so we raced for the swimming hole as soon as we got home (well, he raced; I wilted along).
Five minutes in cold water is miraculous; you don’t feel hot for the rest of the day; at least not so oppressively hot you can’t stand it any more. I’d hate to live without water to immerse myself in, just to float with eyes hovering crocodile-like at the waterline (crocodiles know how to use a good creek), so all the world is watershadowed and different and you meet the waterbeetles face to face.
E could have stayed there till it got dark; but I had dinner to put on (a young rooster to roast, just starting to crow, and the first butternut pumpkin) and he had homework.
So we left the green shadows of the creek and came back into sunlight and the scent of dust and trees.
AUTUMN
March 1
E sees it first, a shock of red in dark green shadow. It lifts its paws through the tall matted grass and noses under the apple tree, into a patch of purple dahlias, the red disappearing among the petals so only the greyer tail is visible.
E whispers urgently: ‘You won’t shoot it?’
I shake my head. The fox pricks its ears up above the dahlias, then bends its head again.
‘What’s it doing?’
‘Hunting. Shh.’
The fox lifts its paws like a well-bred horse, head poised and graceful. It trots out of the dahlia patch, and through the orchard towards us. It’s definitely male. Long thin legs, surprisingly high taut body, the front very red, the back turning silver, thicker, bushier, for winter.
The air explodes behind it. Not a rifle. A cloud of red-browed finches leaping up into the pittosporum branches. They’ve been feasting on grass seeds and are disturbed by the fox.
He takes no notice. He’s not after red-browed finches. Little beads of noise echo from the pittosporum, then the birds are off again to the grass on the other side.
The fox is nosing under the rosebush now, my full-blushed Countess Bertha, soft-cupped roses sprawling from the canes onto the grass. Roses become full coloured in autumn, glowing subtleties you never see in harsh hot light. But then everything loses colour in summer, the white light drinks colour, the air hazes in the heat and the world is bright and all the same.
Colours come back in autumn. The sky reaches deep blue and clear above you, the shadows thicken; there is clarity in the air again, each scent distinct. From where we sit we can smell the kiwi fruit, hard and furry and ripening above us, the clear water, damp soil smell from the creek, the bitter casuarina, the softer red-gum smell, the honey taste of roses and, sharply now, the smell of fox.
Foxes smell like dog, but more so, a concentrated essence. You can smell a fox a day after it has passed.
The fox is half under the rosebush now. Its tail sags behind it, not held upwards like a dog’s.
E whispers: ‘Do you think he’ll prick his nose?’
‘No,’ I answer, and then he does, leaps back affronted and rubs it with his paw.
Suddenly he leaps, brushing the edge of Countess Bertha, so that soft pink petals sprinkle on the grass. But he’s missed it, whatever it was. He leaps again. He catches it.
It’s a lizard, a golden skink. We can see it in his mouth, one end still wriggling. Then it’s gone. The fox trots back across the lawn. He stops, sniffs, bends down and snuffles over the grass.
That’s where we walked this morning, picking parsley and fat tomatoes and fatter dahlias, yellow purple and globular pink. The fox can smell us. He follows our tracks over to the tap, then stops, considers.
We stay still. E’s learnt stillness lately, at least when watching animals. Before he used to bounce with excitement. Now he just watches, quiet for a time.
The fox looks around. He sees us, considers, pads quickly over to the old tank we use as a woodshed and considers us again.
We don’t move.
The fox bends down and starts to hunt again. It’s after more golden skinks, more fat little crunchy lizards. There are plenty in the woodshed and on the paving around the house. E claims he’s tamed one, it lets him pat it, though I’ve never seen it. But last Christmas we fed a somnolent golden skink up the gorge, Bryan and me, and the lizard lying on the hot rocks all eating slivers of turkey and plum pudding, the lizard greasy round the jowls and licking its chops after every offering of plum pudding or crumb of turkey fat.
I’ve watched foxes eat lizards before. They seem to be a large part of their diet around here. They like frogs too, leaping after them among the rocks by the creek. I once watched one fishing in the shallow pools, waiting in the water, paws wet, then snapping down suddenly, into the water, arching up with wet head, and spray catching the light around its shoulders and the tail of a fish flapping out of its mouth.
Foxes like peaches as well, will snuffle out windfalls and even climb a tree, especially in a drought, so you find gnawed green peaches halfway up a tree and wonder, till one day you catch a fox up there, munching, having trotted up the rough vase-shaped branches, almost horizontal in places and easy climbing for agile paws. They adore avocados too, but foxes can’t climb avocado trees (the trees are too straight), so they have to wait for the currawongs to knock one off.
One stalked away in disgust once after I shot a rabbit. It didn’t want dead meat, though foxes will scavenge chook heads and roadkills happily enough – or maybe only if
they’re hungry. They eat the crimson rosellas too, pouncing out on them from the thorn bushes as they eat grass seeds, though most of the smaller birds round here seem relatively safe, secure in thorn bush and blackberry thickets, the daredevil male bowerbirds rustling and whistling under the bushes at the foxes as they pass. In a good season the foxes have easy pickings without prickles.
The fox has had no luck in the woodshed. Maybe we make it nervous. It wriggles under the netting and is out of the orchard.
‘Will it come back?’ asks E.
I shake my head. ‘Probably not today,’ I answer. We catch a last glimpse of red as it pads up through the stringy-barks.
Later we go for a walk ourselves. The bark crackles under our feet like old toast, the creek flows clear between warm rocks, brown-water lights this time of year instead of blue or green, the sky a distinct entity, you can almost slice it, you can taste the colours around you, fresh green, chocolate brown, air like boiled lollies.
There’s a long sweep of goanna track on the path in front of us, elongated roo prints in the mud from last week’s rain. There’s a furious chattering, guzzling above us, female bowerbirds and currawongs en masse gorging on the last of the apples, the first quinces, the final crop of figs. The bowerbirds and currawongs mob together at this time of year, gorging the same harvests, but there’s more than even they can stick their beaks into, no competition.
E picks the quinces; they look like knobbly footballs. I fold my jumper up to carry them and they leave it brown and furry and stretched out of shape. E dances beside me.
Year in the Valley Page 14