When I eat this salad, I feel summer.
Deep inside, into my very core – surging through my being; I feel, experience, am summer.
It’s not the sticky-hot, sweat-dripping, red-faced monstrosity that typically barrels in mid-July through early-September, but a fresher, earthier summer. One of dew-sprinkled mornings and clean, starry nights. It’s picnics and beachy waves.
It’s ripe tomatoes, still warm from the sun. A dusting of windblown soil. The way they almost seem too full of juice and seeds and tomato gel. Some sweet, some slightly tart.
It’s peaches, fuzzy and cool. Sweetness complementing the tomato’s acidic tang. Juice, that usually would be making a fierce run down my chin, swirls and intertwines with rich, heady balsamic, lightly salted tomato juice, and woody thyme.
Summer on a plate.
Peach and Heirloom Tomato Salad
Serves One
1 peach, slivered
1 handful heirloom cherry tomatoes, sliced
4 slices heirloom tomato(es)
handful mozzarella, sliced
salt and pepper, to taste
drizzle balsamic vinegar
thyme, roughly chopped
I’m not sure there’s really a right way to plate this salad, but here’s what I did: I lined the bottom of the plate with the large slices of heirloom tomato, scattered half the peach slivers on top, added the sliced heirloom cherry tomatoes and then the rest of the peaches. Finished with the mozzarella, salt, pepper, balsamic, and thyme.
The Little Bite 
I had to look up the word “heirloom”, but I’m still not sure why you call your tomatoes heirloom tomatoes. What does it mean? The plating of the salat looks gorgeous. I’ve just had my breakfast porridge, but now I’m hungry again! Peaches in Austria are still too tart for a good salad (or anything else), but I’ll save the recipe for later in July or August.
Nadja
Heirloom plants are also called “Heritage” plants. They’re varieties that were commonly grown during earlier periods of time before modern mass-vegetable production and large scale agriculture. They’re often plant varieties that are 100+ years old. They’re not really grown by companies, but rather by smaller-scale, local farmers and backyard gardeners.
Some more info – http://www.halcyon.com/tmend/define.htm
At least in the States, commercially grown tomatoes – like the ones you will find at grocery stores – are tasteless and all around bad. They’re bread for uniformity of color and shape and the natural sugars and flavors get lost in the process. Heirloom (heritage) tomatoes are much tastier, even if sometimes funny looking!
Thank you for the information! The website looks interesting, but I’ve never seen any of the vegetables they suggest you should grow.
Yes, ordinary tomatoes can often be tasteless. I buy mine at the farmer’s market – they also have little yellow ones and red ones that look like pears. Must be heirloom tomatoes 🙂 In supermarkets here you can buy ordinary tomatoes, but they also sell packages with “old varieties” from Austria. I also grow some old red pepper varieties (one of them is called ‘Bull’s horn’) and a tomato variety that has little orange fruits on my balcony.
Do you also grow heirloom vegetables? You should definitely try one of our local salads (Grazer Krauthäuptel). It’s from the end of the 19th century 🙂
Nadja