What Would Mae West Say? A Tomato Manifesto.

Lemon Boys and Pesto, on Cranberry-Semolina Sourdough

I thought it was Mae West who said something about good sex being great, and bad sex being pretty good too, but I can't find the attribution, so maybe I'm wrong; apparently of similar mind, I did come across one Jimmy Williams (and again, I'm honestly not sure which, but my money is on the old Red Sox manager), who said, “Sex is like money, golf and beer - even when it's bad, it's good.” Whatever the case, I'm going to argue that sex is a really lousy analogy for tomatoes.

Because the thing about tomatoes is this: There is perfect, there is nearly perfect, and there is wholly unacceptable. "Middle ground" is a term better reserved for debating the relative merits of cooking beef to rare vs. medium-rare specifications, or figuring out how to get your tween daughter to clean her room. No, with tomatoes, the territory between "good" and "bad" is more like a DMZ: It's right there in front of you, it's clear and well-defined, and if you spend too much time inside it, you're likely to end up shot. Or, if we're talking about the kitchen, with a mouthful of mealy, watery, flavorless red mush of only the most casual, and likely offensive, relation to what your palate had greedily anticipated. Come to think, maybe that's the better analogy: If your favorite, wisened grandparent, full of love, spark, and pithy bits of folksy wisdom, were a succulent, ripe heirloom cultivar, then the drab supermarket tomato, mass-farmed for the ketchup-and-shitty-pasta-sauce market, picked sufficiently close to granite-like hardness that it will endure hundreds (if not thousands) of miles of open roads, piled en masse atop eighteen-wheeler bin trucks, without suffering so much as a blemish, is a bit like that woebegone uncle or black sheep cousin in a Chevy Chase family vacation movie (or, perhaps, from your own Thanksgiving table). You know that if you actually went out and ran a DNA test, it would confirm that he does in fact share genetic code with the rest of the family, but no empirical evidence, physical nor behavioral, exists to support that conclusion.

In search of pistou

Thanks to Bernier Farms' produce, 4 ingredients & no cooking for a perfect sauce

Let me start with the essential fact: Pistou is seriously good stuff. Made in minutes, from very few (and entirely raw) ingredients, it turns a vegetable soup transcendent, it transforms a pasta from the simple to the sublime, and, perhaps less conventionally but no less successfully, it works wonders with certain seafood.

The problem is, unlike in the case of its far more famous (and near-mystical-when-done-right) cousin, pesto, there seems to be no clear agreement on what actually constitutes a true pistou. Or, at least that is what is to be gleaned from a quick perusal of my personal collection of cook books. In the case of pesto, one need go no further than Marcella Hazan (Essentials of Italian Cooking). OK, sure, the exact proportions change, but how exact is a "cup of loosely packed basil", never mind "2-4 plump garlic cloves"? My point is, there is broad agreement amongst serious cooks (or at least the subset of those whose cookbooks I both possess and have bothered to read) as to what constitutes pesto. I cannot say the same for pistou. To wit:

• Julia Child, in her classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, suggests a relatively small proportion of basis, a relatively large proportion of tomato, and the more-or-less-usual quantities of olive oil and garlic. And - this being, in my opinion, the critical point, Julia includes grated cheese (Italian cheese, in point of fact - fascinating to the point of uniqueness, in classical French cooking). But no butter - this isn't pesto, after all.
• In Mireille Johnston's really good, if overlooked, small tome on Provencal cooking, The Cuisine of the Sun, we find basil, garlic, olive oil, and, again, grated Parmigiano - but here the proportions are distinctly pesto-like, with something like 5-10 times the amount of basil Ms Child would have me use (and a bit more garlic than most Italians would use). 
• Patricia Wells, in the consistently excellent At Home in Provence, provides a very similar recipe to Ms Johnston, with pesto-like proportions, but - critically - no cheese. 
• Finding such inconsistencies, and lacking the motivation and resources to track down primary historical sources, I went to the Gastronomique, who provides (perhaps unsurprisingly) very similar guidelines to Ms Child in the basic recipe. However, in the description of the condiment, it makes clear that the base is a paste of garlic, basil, and olive oil, and that tomatoes and cheese are sometimes added. 

One may fairly ask, "So what?" Because, while I'm not quiet a zealot about it, I generally count myself amongst the Italian school of "no dairy with seafood", and wild salmon was on the menu (more on the not-so-classic combination of this garlicky concoction with salmon in my next post). So where I come out is this: If you're going to serve pistou with seafood - and it can be truly exceptional with sea bass, crab, salmon, and perhaps most of all, rouget or red mullet - then follow Ms Wells, use lots of basil, and leave out the cheese. As to the radical variation in proportions, I think it really comes down to taste and application: The Childs/Gastronomique versions are really closer to a flavored olive oil, almost a vinaigrette with the acid, whereas the Wells/Johnston versions show case the aromatics of the basil and form a thicker, paste-like consistency, both of which are features I adore (even more so if you're spreading it on crusty bread, and why wouldn't you do that). One thing that is always and everywhere uncertain is the garlic: Which varietal, how young or old, the size of the cloves, and whether you want a mere background hint, or a spicy wallop in the front of the palate... it just depends, is about all I can say.

The other advantage of Ms Wells' version is that it can readily be converted to proper pesto at a later stage, simply by beating in a few tablespoons of soft butter and mixing in the requisite quantities of finely grated parmigiano and romano cheeses, although I'd have to think about how to deal with the missing pignoli.

I have less of an opinion with respect to the tomatoes, mainly because I've not spent much with tomato-laden pistous; that being said, I can easily imagine a simply grilled whole bass, dressed with Ms Child's version of the sauce. In fact, seeing how much of the rather intense and concentrated elixir is now sitting in my fridge, I test that hypothesis next weekend...

In the event, my eldest daughter and I decided to stop by the Tuesday farmer's market in town and, as we were under a bit of time pressure, made only one stop for produce: Luckily, we landed at the Bernier Farms stand, and they had an exceptionally fragrant Tuscan garlic and big, bright green bunches of Genovese basil, so the decision was easy.

Pistou (food processor method)

1. Mince 1-2 large (2-4 small) cloves of fresh garlic and form a paste by sprinkling with kosher salt and using the flat side of large knife to mash the salt and garlic on a cutting board.
2. Gently wash and de-stem 2 cups of loosely packed basil leaves, taking care not to beat the leaves up too much at this stage. Get the Genovese varietal if at all possible, nothing else has the fragrance. (On a side note, if you have sun, basil is a frightfully productive and easy-to-grow plant.)
3. Put the garlic paste and basil into a food processor and puree, while slowly adding a quarter to a half cup of good quality, extra virgin olive oil. And if you want to be strict about the whole cooking-local thing live in California, you can probably get a very good olive oil from not too far away. (I love our local oils, and I buy but I'm no zealot, and have no objection to buying organic extra virgin Italian olive oil in bulk from the dreaded Costco.) Continue with the oil until it reaches the desired consistency.
4. Puree just until smooth or you'll bruise the leaves beyond recognition, a few minutes should suffice. Transfer quickly to a tightly-sealing container that fits the quantity as well as possible - oxidation takes away the wonderful color of the pistou, so the less exposed surface area the better. Keep refrigerated, but allow to come to room temperature before serving.