Greenhouse Salad

When I was growing up we lived in a very special house in the suburbs of Cork.
This house was on a hill over the city and there was a wonderful view from the garden of the river Lee flowing eastwards out or the city to the harbour.
My mother’s pride and joy (and a contribution towards the household economy) was a huge greenhouse at the very top of the garden.
In this she principally grew two of the most beautifully scented fruits I know; tomatoes and white peaches .

In one of Elizabeth David’s cookery books she talks of an autumn spent in Spain where every day they ate for lunch a simple salad of tomatoes, warm from the vine and dressed in olive oil, a meal she claims it would be hard to better.

My other kitchen goddess, Myrtle Allen, in her book about the food of Ballymaloe says that she has tried for many years to make the perfect tomato soup, she feels it should taste of the juices left in the bowl after a fresh tomato salad.

When my daughter Eileen was ill, a long time ago, they told us in the hospital that she should be encouraged to eat as much as she wanted in the times during her treatment when hungry to compensate for those times when she would lose her appetite.
Eileen’s favourite food at that time (and very possibly still) is bread dipped into the vinaigrette left in the salad bowl from a tomato salad. I have a distinct memory of making tomato salads and (being unable to face another) discarding the fruit to leave the juices to our four year old daughter.

In another of Elizabeth David’s books, I think Summer Cooking, she gives a recipe from Italy, for a salad of tomatoes and peaches.
I remember trying this out and being so impressed with the taste and the wonderful way both fruits brought out each others flavours that I put it on the menu on the restaurant.
While it was never a best seller, those that tried it grew strangely addicted.

Just two weeks ago I was flicking through my old friend Michael Waterfield’s new edition of his great great aunt Janet Ross’s book “Leaves from our Tuscan Kitchen” because I was reviewing it for a local paper.
There at the bottom of a long list of various ways of dressing tomatoes for salad I found a throwaway recipe for a salad of Tomatoes and Italian Peaches.

Today, at last, all of these various threads came together.

We are staying in Faugeres in the south of France, living in a little village house with a south facing terrace.
The temperatures are in the mid thirties.
Just yesterday we had bought a large green umbrella and stand as otherwise we were finding the terrace too hot in the middle of the day to eat outside.
At lunchtime today I went to the fridge to find something to eat.
There were large sweet ripe tomatoes and ripe and blushing white peaches.
All of the above came together as I made the following salad (which I have named after my mother’s greenhouse in Tivoli.)

La Salade de La Serre

3 Large Ripe tomatoes
2 Large Ripe White Peaches (yellow peaches or nectarines will do at a pinch)
1 teaspoon caster Sugar (in Ireland only, not needed in the south where the fruit sweetens naturally in the sun)
1 Energetic grinding of black pepper
1 large pinch of Maldon Sea Salt (crushed lightly in your fingers as you scatter)
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons of fruity olive oil
6 to 8 leaves of fresh Basil

1 crisp fresh French loaf or ciabatta

Peel the peaches (by plunging in boiling water if needed)
Slice into eight of ten segments off the stone and then halve these.
Cut the tomatoes into similar sized pieces, discarding the core near the stem.
Sprinkle over the sugar (if using) the pepper, salt, oil and vinega,r tear the basil leaves over, and toss together with a spoon.
Leave for about ten minutes to blend, then eat, on its own or with some cold meats.

When the tomatoes are finished (and this is the best bit) finish off the tomatoey peachy vinaigrette by dipping pieces of the bread into these juices.

The gods probably lived on food like this.