One tomato a day, all of August
A cook's case for eating the same thing until it stops being the same thing.
Every August I eat one tomato a day: sliced, salted, sometimes with bread, never cooked. By the third week I can tell which side of the plant it grew on.
This is not a diet or a challenge. It is the cheapest lesson in paying attention I know, and it only works in the four weeks a year when tomatoes are worth the bother.
Why only August
Outside the high summer, a supermarket tomato is a vehicle for colour. In August, from a market stall or a neighbour’s greenhouse, it is the most complicated thing you will eat all week: sweet, sour, grassy and a little like blood. The difference is sunlight and ripening on the vine, and no recipe can fake it.
By the third week you can tell which side of the plant it grew on.
The ritual
Cut it at room temperature, never cold. Use a serrated knife, flaky salt and nothing else for the first week. In week two, add good olive oil. In week three, a slice of toasted sourdough rubbed with garlic. By week four you will have opinions about varieties you had never heard of in July.
What it teaches
Eating the same thing every day makes you notice everything that changes around it: the weather, the soil, your own mood. It is a small, edible kind of attention, and it is over before you are tired of it.
