Stars of the earth

Russian tomato seeds, bought in Georgia, grown in Wales.

I wouldn't eat raw tomatoes as a child even though my mother explained they were fruit, once known as love apples. Pasta with tomato sauce was my favourite food but raw, never. Until I went to work on a kibbutz in Israel. We students were assigned to tomato harvesting which started at 5am, dawn, to avoid the heat of the day. We stood in a row on the combine harvester which was far  too noisy to hear ourselves speak, as the tomatoes whizzed along a conveyor belt in front of us. Our job was to pick off the bad ones: squashy, mouldy, damaged or infested. Dust and  leaves and insects were hurled around. Once the sun was up it  all got smellier and stickier until at 10am we  knocked off for breakfast served at tables in an open-sided barn. The food was delivered from the kitchen, clean and cool and fresh. And always there were plates of tomato salad - and again at supper in the communal dining hall, more tomatoes. Tomatoes with every single meal. So I succumbed and ever since I've loved raw tomatoes,  so long as they are naturally grown, tasty and not chilled (I never keep them in the fridge.) My pleasure in growing them exceeds all else.

Thank you for the positive responses to the Seamus Heaney poem  The Baler in my last blip. It certainly took me by the throat.
The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda famously wrote an ode to the tomato,  in which he likened them to stars of the earth - you can find it here.   (Remember that December is summer time in South America.)