Is It Okay to Be Happy About an Early Harvest?

Purple Cherokee, moments after harvesting.

I used to hate tomatoes. Really, really hate them.

When I was a kid, we had a small Associated Grocery store at the end of my street, and they had a “fresh produce” bin at the far side of the store, where they carried iceberg wrapped in Saran, bagged celery, carrots, onions, and tomatoes. When it was particularly hot out, my grandmother would get it into her mind to make a salad, into which she’d slice up said tomatoes. The first time I took a bite of one was also the last: it was slimy, tasteless, and sort of furry, all at once.

Years later, when I worked at the original Dean & Deluca in Soho, we used to sell strangely contorted-looking tomatoes for $7 each. Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was a regular customer, used to come in and buy them every day they were in season. When I asked him why he didn’t buy a few at a time, he smiled and said “because each individual one needs to feel special.”

Uh-huh.

I didn’t get it until I had my first garden, about ten years ago, when I tasted my first sun-warmed Brandywine, picked off the vine, sliced, and eaten out of hand. Some harvests were definitely better than others; some tomatoes were tastier, some I had to boost along once they were on the plate, and some–like the ones we tried to grow last year before being hit with tomato blight–died on the vine. But it was nearly always well-worth the wait until the first or second week in August, when my earliest crop would be ripe enough to eat.

Today is July 28th, and I’ve already eaten the most extraordinary tomato I’ve ever tasted: the Purple Cherokee, above, picked last weekend. Susan brought it into the house, we sliced it, and moments later, it was gone. Sweet, juicy, ripe.

And seriously early.

Yesterday, while running around doing some errands, I noticed that my local nursery was selling corn from a nearby farm. Susan is fanatical about corn, so I popped in and picked up half a dozen ears: well-formed, they in no way resembled the premature stuff that corn-crazed  Yankees manage to convince themselves are ready for picking in July. We ate four of them last night: they too were sweet, juicy, fresh, and not at all starchy. I’ll make Indian-spiced corn and jalapenos tonight with the two remaining ears. They were also, like the tomatoes, seriously early.

So, as we partake in this glorious crop of vegetables from the first really successful garden we’ve had in a few years, I wonder: is it ever okay to be happy about an early harvest?

Here’s a few words from Jill Sobule on the subject.