Green tomatoes

I made one of my better batches of fried green tomatoes for dinner tonight as I continue to wait for my barm brack dough to rise.

I have probably ten pounds of green tomatoes, not to mention an equal weight of sunchokes, in my refrigerator, harvested from plots across Oakland as we pulled up tomato plants. It's unlikely that many more tomatoes will ripen in autumn's short days and cool nights, so it's out with tomatoes, in with the onions, fava beans, winter greens and garlic. Garlic should be planted in the fall to be harvested in late spring, early summer, I think. You can plant garlic right up through about March if you want to harvest it as green garlic (as opposed to the little white gems proper).

I've been a good urban farmer this week, and am feeling a certain nobility in it. I love the way we descend on our harvest at the end of Permaculture class, taking home our weekly sack of vegetables wrested from the earth by our own toil, though it still feels a bit like alchemy. I'll be the first to admit the plants do most of the work.

To fry green tomatoes, you will need:

- a supply of green tomatoes
- cornmeal
- flour (optional)
- milk or egg or buttermilk or a combination or nothing
- hot paprika or cayenne pepper
- salt, preferably sea salt
- vegetable oil or ghee or bacon grease for frying

Mix 2 parts cornmeal with 1 part flour in a small, flatish bowl with enough hot paprika or cayenne pepper so that you can just begin to see the color once it's combined. (Or use only cornmeal for a grittier texture, or half cornmeal, half flour for a finer texture). Shake in salt to taste.

Pour your milk or egg into another small bowl, if you'll be coating your tomato slices.

Slice your tomatoes about 1/4" thick. Heat some oil/ghee/fat in a frying pan. Dip each slice first in the milk/egg, then in the cornmeal mixture so that it's coated with cornmeal. Lay slices flat in the frying pan and cook until the tomatoes are soft and the cornmeal gets a nice crisp golden color.

Enjoy immediately.

Because these are necessarily made in small batches it's easy to adjust paprika/pepper and salt levels to your personal preference as you go.