A cook’s year TOMATOES
Nothing shouts summer more than vine-ripened orbs bursting with sweetness. Gill Meller pays homage to heritage varieties with his rustic, slow-roasted dish
RECIPE, FOOD STYLING AND STYLING GILL MELLER PHOTOGRAPHS ANDREW MONTGOMERY
Have you ever stood in a greenhouse or polytunnel full of tomatoes in August? It’s a multi-sensory experience. It’s the warmth that hits you first – a moist, hugging air that carries a fragrance so particular and so special that, for me, it evokes both joy and sadness. Then there are the vines themselves, standing side by side in pirouette-like forms. Sometimes they are trained to the sky by a single cord and seem impossibly tall given the pull of heavy fruit suspended from their delicate branches.
The colour of the fruit varies immensely depending on variety: from deep, rich reds to oranges and yellows of all hues, striped greens, dusky blacks and speckled purples. If you’re quiet you can almost hear the plants through the thick air – a gentle humming or a buzzing. Maybe it’s the sound of life.