Tomatoes

The linkage between Jordanians and tomatoes is difficult to explain. One would never guess that the tomato originated in the Americas, and is not native to this region. We love fresh tomatoes, and cook them with spring beans (fasoulia), with peas (bazailah), with stuffed squash (kusa), with grape leaves, with okra (bamia), and with vegetable roasts (seenieh). We eat it with Arabic salad (fine cut), with foreign salad (with coarse cut), and with tabouleh. We eat them raw (with a sprinkle of salt, and maybe a glass of arak). We cook pastas, and we cook it in a pan with green peppers and onions (hoseh) or with garlic (gallaieh). We roast them on the grill. We love tomatoes.

In the old days, tomatoes were grown in the highlands and were rain fed. These ba’el tomatoes are not much to look at, but they are absolutely delicious, with a great aroma and with a slight tinge of leftover sulfur used as a fungicide. If you drive around in the summer in the rural areas, you might be lucky enough to get this unique treat.

As with everything else, modern life has encroached on the tomato. It is now grown and harvested all year round (given the variety of climatic regions in the country). It is grown in the Jordan valley, in the highlands and even in the desert. For the most part, these are irrigated, and not nearly as good at the rain fed variety. However, they are easy to grow, and the harvest is typically large. When the harvest is in, the prices plummet. Farmers practically give them away at prices that do not cover the cost. Our addiction to tomatoes can probably be traced to the abundance that modern farming has brought.

Of course, this does little good to the farmers. To help, the government built tomato paste factories to help soak up extra production. You can buy little cans of tomato paste for 15 piasters in any grocery store. These little cans should act as a “strategic reserve”, but housewives (including my lovely wife) try to avoid using them if at all possible. Unfortunately, they still haven’t figured out how to make decent catsup.

Anyway, what brings this on? Well, for various reasons the price of tomatoes have hovered around a way too expensive 70 piasters a kilo for the last couple of months, and they are not very good. There is usually an inverse relationship between quality and price. It seems that a mixture of frost and expanded exports have lowered the amount of fresh vegetables shipped to the local markets, causing this phenomenon. Anyway, this is creating much hardship. Humorist Ahmad Hassan Al Zoubi has written an ode to the tomato gallaieh, which is traditionally a poor people’s meal, pointing out that that a pickup load of tomatoes will cost the full salaries of five full-time employees. He jokingly says that it is now cheaper to eat at McDonalds.

It is also causing personal hardship for me, as my wife asks me daily about what she should cook. Without decent tomatoes, the choice becomes limited.

I suppose you know what is going to be planted in my garden this weekend.