Ripe Crunchy Tomatoes

Tomatoes shouldn’t crunch when you bite into them. Eating a tomato from my big chain supermarket can sound more apple then tom. Why is that? Because that vine ripened (but rarely ripe) tomato has been shipped many miles, perhaps thousands. But truly ripe, juicy, naturally red tomatoes don’t like to travel: they are travel-averse. They like their own ‘hood: they get all squishy when they must be packaged and shipped from Mexico, or Spain, or California, to Bismarck, North Dakota or Boston, Massachusetts.

But a tomato can travel pretty well if you let it vine ripen just to the ripeness of a major league baseball. Then you can ship it anywhere in the world. If we want tomatoes in February, well the sun’s over the yardarm somewhere, and tomatoes are growing there. Pick ‘em, pack ‘em, ship ‘em. Trucks, ships, trains, planes, more trucks: don’t worry, what that traveling tom lacks in taste, he more than makes up for in structural integrity.

Speaking of taste, tomatoes shouldn’t taste like reddish, soggy paper. They should taste like, well, tomatoes. I grew up in L.A. and all our vegetables came from one big chain supermarket or another. I never tasted a real tomato until adulthood. “Wow,” I thought, “so that’s what sliced farm-fresh tomatoes and artisan mozzarella, topped with just-picked-from-the-garden basil, sea salt, a generous grind of fresh black pepper, then liberally drizzled with Tuscan extra-virgin olive oil* should taste like!” (*Okay, so I snuck in a recipe here. But if your tomato is tasteless cardboard, your Caprese will be too.)

So what’s the I’m-not-a-farmer-or-a-gardener-but-a-citydweller-food-lover to do to get ripe tomatoes? You could move to Tuscany where you’d get freshly pressed olive oil too, or, you could join a Community Supported Agricultural (CSA) cooperative. 

Community Supported Agriculture (And Other Farm Subscriptions)
Many farms offer produce subscriptions, where buyers receive a weekly or monthly basket of produce, flowers, fruits, eggs, milk, coffee, or any sort of different farm products.

A CSA, (for Community Supported Agriculture) is a way for the food buying public to create a relationship with a farm and to receive a weekly basket of produce. By making a financial commitment to a farm, people become "members" (or "shareholders," or "subscribers") of the CSA. Most CSA farmers prefer that members pay for the season up-front, but some farmers will accept weekly or monthly payments. Some CSA’s also require that members work a small number of hours on the farm during the growing season.

A CSA season typically runs from late spring through early fall. The number of CSA’s in the United States was estimated at 50 in 1990, and has since grown to over 1000.

That's what the organization LocalHarvest tells us about CSA's. LocalHarvest was founded in 1998, and is now the number one informational resource for the Buy Local movement. They have about 9000 members, and are growing by about 8 new members every day. Here’s what they say about CSA’s.

Resources
USDA Farmer’s Market Web Site: http://www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/
LocalHarvest: http://www.localharvest.org/