Corona Cookbook: Summah Suppah
Bucket uv Tamatahs
By: Charles Giuliano - Aug 16, 2020
Nothin tops a simple Summah Suppah.
Here in the Berkshires there are wonderful farm stands.
A favorite near our North Adams loft is Racine’s.
We've been goin there for years.
On the hill is the weathered Victorian farmhouse.
It sure could use a coat of paint.
We go for the tamatahs and cukes.
There used to be an adjacent cahn stand.
They retired couple years ago.
Now we have to drive around for our cahn.
Like at Whitney’s a big operation on Route 8 with a greenhouse and whatnot.
There were kids running the veggies.
I asked her for some cahn.
“What” she said? Giving me a geeky gandah.
“You know,” I says, pointing behind her, ”How bout sumeh them cahn.”
“You know,” trien tah be patient “a haf duzen eahs uh cahn.”
She wasn’t hip to the jive but wised up a bit.
Gettin intah tha bantah.
So we gut our cahn.
Tamatahs at Whitney’s them’s real expensive.
Like $3.50 a pound. That just about gets you one decent one.
Used to grow em out back in Adams.
It was usually iffy with good summahs and bad ones.
Too many years a lot of trouble for nuthin.
Plants got blight and just croaked.
Other years a bumper crop.
We harvested them with a wheel barrow.
Made buckets of sauce and gave tons away to friends.
The herbs were always great with lots of basil and arugula.
It was gettin tough to weed the beds.
I could get down but it was a bitch gettin back up.
Sure sucks gettin old yah know.
We sold Adams and consolidated in the loft,
Astrid still gardens tending to some beds down back.
She’s always out there waterin as well as trees by the road.
What I love about Racine’s is getting a bucket of seconds.
Them’s not quite right tamatahs.
Too ripe or busted up somehow.
Used to be just five bucks not $9.50 which is right close to a Hamilton.
What the heck yah gunnah do?
But secunds was real good this time.
Lasted three darn weeks.
We had feasts of them. Night aftah night platter aftah platter.
Dressed with lemon, basil and herbs.
We ain’t eatin no tamatahs in wintah.
Got no taste just look red.
Right now we gorge on perfect summah suppahs.
Two ears each of sweet cahn, tamatahs and cukes.
Ain’t nuthin like it.
Even made salsa and hankerin to do gazpacho.
My friend Jimmy Midnight, from down Maine, makes tamatah juice.
Drinkin gallons with a splash of vodka.
Real bloody them famah’s Marys.
Right darn slurpin em.
Or kindah Down East V-8 with a variety of stuff like beets, carrots and celery.
Been thinking of whippin up a chile or putanesca.
That’s a quick fresh sauce she made comin home from all day on her back.
Anchovies, capers, red pepper, onion, fresh tamatas.
Real fast on the stove then dumped over pasta.
Now’s the time folks. Still summah but inchin close tah Labah Day.
Then frost on the pumpkin if you know what I mean.