The Tomato Art

Harvesting Sunlight
by Jim Duncan with art by Bill Luchsinger & Karen Strohbeen, courtesy of Moberg Gallery

“Food is normally the last thing on my mind after working all day in the kitchen,” says Le Jardin chef Tag Grandgeorge, “but I can’t think of anything better than walking around a farmers market stand and popping one of those green zebras in my mouth,” he continued, regarding a particularly sweet striped tomato.

Grandgeorge has thought hard on the subject, too. Each August he prepares a five course dinner featuring Khanh Hamiltons’ heirloom tomatoes in every course. Among the delicacies in years past: a warm white balsamic tomato vinaigrette on white fish; a black pepper ice cream with caramelized tomato slices and basil syrup; a green tomato and raspberry cobbler, with a coulis of Sweet 100 tomatoes.

Such culinary works of art inspire literal works of art too. At least three Iowa artists, Bill Luchsinger, Karen Strohbeen and Heyoung McBride, have used the Hamiltons’ heirlooms as models. Science can explain the fascination for artists.

Different carotenoids give such fruits their red, yellow and orange colors. In photosynthesis, they trap certain waves of sunlight and funnel their energy into the chlorophyll system. In this sense, different colored tomatoes are packed with different waves of sunlight. Artists can’t look directly at the sun but tomatoes can and artists can look inside tomatoes.
“They’re translucent, not just reflected light. They reflect and glow. They have that magic at the surface,” Luchsinger explains more artistically.

“Like a jewel,” adds Strohbeen.

We call them heirlooms for good reason. The Hamilton’s garden, Sunstead Farm, is a veritable jewelry store, showcasing the fruits of seeds from every continent on earth, sometimes within just one vegetable species. It’s a labor of love for the Hamiltons who came together themselves like windblown seeds . Khanh was displaced from the tea and coffee plantation of her youth by the Vietnamese Diaspora. She lived all over the world before circumstances brought her to Des Moines, and Neil kept her here. Neil left the family farm in Taylor County decades ago, but part of Taylor County stayed with him.

When first married, the Hamilton’s lived in a townhouse in Des Moines where Neil directs Drake’s Agriculture Law Center. While living in the city, they gardened on some friends’ farms. Then in 1997, they bought Sunstead’s ten acres near Waukee and began growing heirloom vegetables. At first they sold them to Des Moines area restaurants Café Su and the Des Moines Art Center Café. When they began selling at the Ingersoll Farmers’ market in 2001, the quality and the colors of their heirlooms attracted more professional chefs around Des Moines. So what keeps a couple of busy professionals, Khanh is also a designer, working the land and hawking their harvest on the urban roadside? Neil says they are in it for the colors.

“With tomatoes, the range of colors is the reason for working with heirlooms, same as with eggplants and beets. The full array of color is exciting and people respond to that,” he explains.

Khanh responds to the way heirloom beets (chioggia, golden, bull’s blood), eggplants and tomatoes are constant and grounded. “Their colors stay. Purple beans turn green when you cook them, so what’s the point? With these heirlooms, the colors stay.”

The Ironic History of the Love Apple

The great variety of the Hamilton’s heirloom tomatoes survived a history of misunderstanding. Ben Franklin didn’t think tomatoes were safe to eat, while less open-minded Colonial Americans thought they were poisonous, and even evil. The tomato did not become a popular food in Northern Europe, England or Anglo-Saxon America until the 20th century.

Coincidentally or not, this is also when tomato ketchup and tomato soup in tin cans and caught on in England and America. In appreciation of the tomato, northern Europe and North America were centuries behind Spain and Italy, and millennia behind Central and South America.

The tomato developed first in Mexico as a corn field weed, but was soon cultivated as a food. By 3500 BC, it was part of the native diet and by the time Cortez came to Mexico, the Aztecs were using tomatoes at all stages of growth. Immature fruits were sliced into salads and ripe plants were cooked with chilies into sauce for beans.

We stereotype the ripe tomato as red and round today, but the varieties that first came to Europe were surely yellow or orange, for they were called “golden apples” (pomodoro). The French name “love apple” (pomme d’amour) was either a corruption of that Spanish word, or of the Italian pomme di moro (“apple of the Moor“).

The Spanish, better informed about tomato sources, began calling them tomate, after the Nuhuatl word tomatl. Even in the late 19th century, northern Europeans wrote that the tomato was totally without nutrition and a cause of gout.

Khanh’s Gardening Tips

Start your seeds in March. Bring them indoors and outdoors regularly in April, this keeps them from getting spindly. When you first put them out in May, set them under a cloth at night.

Deer eat tomatoes in the city, but not in the country where they can find better things. They will eat Swiss chard, beet greens and lettuce anywhere, so chicken wire might be the only way to keep them out. (Some other gardeners believe that a spray of egg whites and water will repel deer).

Beyond Big Boy

Red, round tomatoes are one of the great things about summer in Iowa, but there are splendid minorities in the myriad family of tomato. Here are a few splendid species that break through the red and round stereotype.

Yellow/Orange

Basinga. Heart-shaped fruits have a mild flavor and red blush on blossom end.
Beam’s Year Pear. Prolific supplier of 1 ½ “ pear tomatoes is best for salads and can bear fruit as fast as 70 days from transplant.

Czech’s Excellent Yellow. One of the strongest flavored yellows, these 3 inch fruits grow quickly.

Dr. Wyche’s Yellow. Big full pound tomatoes have lots of meat and orange flesh.

Gold Medal. Yellow with red streaks, these sweet tomatoes are almost acid free.

Golden Sunray. These slow growing fruits are remarkably consistent in size and shape, and blemish free.

Marizol Gold. This heirloom came from Germany’s Black Forest in the 17th century and produces red marbled meat with flat ribs.

Moonglow. These solid orange sweethearts have very few seeds and deep flavor.
Nebraska Wedding. Beautiful orange skinned and fleshed fruits come in clusters and are very slow to mature.

Orange Banana. The name says it all, banana shaped and orange in color, these are best for sauces.

Plum Yellow. From Russia, these look extraordinarily like lemons, but taste sweet.

Roman Candles. These have very smooth skins and are banana shaped.

Russian Persimmon. Mild flavored fruits are 3-4”s in diameter.

Wapsipinicon Peach. These prolific, certified organic 2” fruits from northeast Iowa have fuzzy skin and sweet flavors.

White Beauties. Flat bottomed heirlooms have the most acidulous flavor of all yellows.

Green Flesh

Aunt Ruby’s German Green. Huge beefsteak fruits, over a pound each, are sweet with a spicy flavor.

Black Sea Man. Red centered fruits have odd veins resembling a skeleton.

Green Zebra. Sweet zingy flavored fruits have green and yellow stripes.

Tasty Evergreen. Skin ripens to yellow-brown, but flesh remains green, with strong, sweet flavor.

Red

Black Krim. From the Black Sea, these greenish-black shouldered fruits can turn almost totally black with enough sun and heat.

Black from Tula. An ugly Russian that some gourmets think is the most delicious of all tomatoes.

Cherokee Purples. With the color of a dusty rose, these taste a bit smoky.

Crnkovic Yugoslavian Pink. Deep red and full shouldered, these prolific plants have full flavors.

Dad’s Mug. Mug shaped with pink fruits, these have few seeds and mild flavor.

Federle. These 7 inch long paste fruits resemble peppers in appearance, but have more full flavor than other banana shaped tomatoes.

Grandpa’s Cock’s Plume. Heart shaped fruits from Siberia have few seeds and weigh up to a pound.

Hillbilly Potato Leaf. A heavy bearing plant, these produce red fruits that are streaked with gold.

Long Tom’s. These fruits average 5 “ in length and 2 “ in diameter, with very few seeds and sweet flavors.

Red Cup. These hollow tomatoes are good for stuffing.

Russian Black. Baseball sized fruits have charcoal-red flesh and full flavor.

Soldacki. These came from Poland in 19th century and bear large dense fruits of pinkish red.

Striped Cavern. These hollow fruits have thick, yellow-striped walls and keep as long as a month even when harvested ripe.

Tiger Tom. Gold stripes and tart flavors make this tomato a frequent winner of taste tests.

Recipes

Tag Grandgeorge’s Green Tomato Cobbler with vanilla ice cream

For the filling:

1 ½ lbs firm green tomatoes, cored and finely chopped
2 cups sugar
1 lemon scrubbed, sectioned into 8 pieces and seeded
For the topping:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¾ stick cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
And vanilla ice cream as accompaniment

Method:

Spread half of tomatoes in bottom of large saucepan and cover with 2/3 cup of sugar and lemon and another 2/3 cup sugar. Layer the rest of tomatoes on top and cover with sugar. Let stand without stirring until most of sugar has dissolved, about one hour.

In a mixing bowl combine the flour, ½ cup sugar, baking powder, and the salt. Blend in the butter until mixture resembles course meal. Add ¼ cup boiling water and stir mixture until it just forms a dough.

Preheat over to 400 degrees.

Stir tomatoes and bring to boil over moderately high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes. Fish out lemon wedges and discard.

Transfer mixture to a 10 inch cast-iron skillet, increase heat and slowly bring mixture back to boil. Drop spoonfuls of the dough carefully on the boiling mixture.

Random placement and overlap are acceptable but do not completely cover mixture. Transfer skillet on to foil lined baking sheet and bake in middle of oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until topping is golden. Cool slightly and serve warm with ice cream. Fresh rinsed white and red raspberries make a nice garnish.