John Hoenig

You bought it because it looked pretty good, it was fairly red, it was spherical, it seemed firm and unblemished. It fit the platonic ideal for "tomato", as far as a cursory visual and tactile examination went. That, plus it was the middle of winter, it was relatively cheap and it was convenient. Yes, you bought it from the produce section of a big box retailer or a corporate supermarket, so you weren't getting your hopes up. And sure enough, when you bit into it at home, it was so bland as to be almost devoid of flavor. You are disappointed yet again.

Or perhaps, you shop at a farmer's market or you cultivate a vegetable garden in your backyard and the tomato you eat is juicy, zesty, and incredibly tasty. Your tomato may involve more effort on your part, perhaps a willingness to pay more, a spirit of community, and the suspension of immediate gratification, but a significant number of your fellow Americans are willing to pay these "costs" for the joy of really good, flavorful tomatoes.

In "Garden Variety: the American Tomato from Corporate to Heirloom", John Hoenig traces the history of the tomato in American life, examining the cultivation, marketing and consumption of the vegetable (botanists classify it as a fruit, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it's a veggie for purposes of interstate commerce) and also its impact on various aspects of our social and cultural development as a nation, including the growth of urban America, the inclusion of the "ethnic" diets of immigrants, particularly that of Italian Americans, into national culinary habits and tastes, and the social and political consequences of the Bracero program which was used by large farm operations in California and Texas to provide cheap migrant labor from Mexico to pick the tomato and other crops for several decades, before mechanization.

Hoenig ably contrasts the many ways in which the corporate system of American agriculture and food marketing helped to make the tomato ubiquitous with the movements favoring local food, organic farming, and home gardening. "Garden Variety" will feed your appetite for knowledge about our favorite vegetable and its place in our history.… (altro)