Tomato Delight

Yesterday I ate the best tomato of my life. Gianfranco got it from a coworker, who got it out of his garden. It was lying on a plate of good olive oil and maybe something else too. I put a few slices on krisprolls, over a layer of camembert, and the result blew my mind. It was more than salty, more than tangy... it defied such two dimensional words even as it fulfilled them. Likewise I can't tell you what it was 'like'. It was 'like' nothing else, it was a tomato, but better than any other tomato I've ever eaten.

But I can say this: This was the tomato that they talk about. This was the tomato that inspired Neruda's Oda al Tomate.

"Debemos, por desgracia,
asesinarlo:
se hunde
el cuchillo
en su pulpa viviente,
es una roja
víscera,
un sol
fresco,
profundo,
inagotable...

...y sobre
la mesa, en la cintura
del verano,
el tomate,
astro de tierra,
estrella
repetida
y fecunda,
nos muestra
sus circunvoluciones,
sus canales,
la insigne plenitud
y la abundancia
sin hueso,
sin coraza,
sin escamas ni espinas,
nos entrega
el regalo
de su color fogoso
y la totalidad de su frescura."