Tomato Tales

Both of these photos were taken last summer. One, of a tomato grown on a soil farm on the east coast, the other of tomatos growing hydroponically in New York. Those of us living in the north east and mid-atlantic states know about the tomato blight of 2009 where a highly contagious fungus--the same fungus that caused the Irish potato famine--ruined most of our local tomato crops, leaving them looking more like sickly prunes than something you'd want to toss into your salsa.

Or maybe east coasters don't know about the blight, because their supermarkets stocked up on west coast produce and they never had to witness the fungi-riddles tomatoes shriveling up on farms nearby. It's easy to pile a bag of red tomatoes into our supermarket carts without thinking about how far the tomato had to travel. Just think, if we started growing our own tomatoes in hydroponic farms on our very own rooftops, we'd never have to turn to the west coast to buy frozen veggies chock full o' food miles.

One thing's for sure. If you enjoyed a juicy ripe tomato on the east coast last summer, chances are it was shipped thousands of miles. We can do better than that.