You Say Tomato…
People have been telling me that they don’t know how to say the name of this magazine and community space that I’ve launched. But how you say it doesn’t really matter. Indeed, that you will say it differently from me and the next person will say it another way is part of the point. We’re all talking about different things when we talk about food, but sometimes… we say it the same way, and we understand each other, and from that point, we find new common ground.
I chose Tomato Tomato because I like to say the phrase, and because tomatoes are an oddly global vegetable—or fruit, depending on how pedantic we’re being on this particular day. They originated in South America and became a staple everywhere. Sometimes they’re the background of a dish, and other times they’re the star. Many will wait for their most perfect season to eat them fresh, yet all year round, keep them in their pantries in cans and tubes of concentrated paste. They embody the global food system: Precious, sometimes; commodity, mostly. Ubiquitous and mindless and then at peak summer, whenever that might be for you—the height of luxury.
All these contradictions in one fruit, or vegetable. I love that, and it represents the kind of writing we’ll publish here and the kinds of conversations we’ve already been having in our Discord community, in our Book Club and Salons, and that I hope to expand outward with this publication. There’s no one way to eat, and food never has one meaning. We’re hashing out the nuance and having the conversation without obsessing over manmade borders. We’re talking about food and eating and how it really manifests in our lives and cultures. And we’re trying to have fun while we do it, because dare I say—we need it.
I commissioned these ten stories based on text messages, social media posts, talks given at academic symposiums, trends I noticed that I thought a particular writer might be good for—and that’s how these occasional digital drops will work. I want their origin points to be life lived in the world and casual communication.
Please enjoy Hannah Selinger on Boston hate; Ariana Gunderson writing on recipe copyright as advice columnist Sandra Marzano; Millicent Souris chronicling her TV food styling gigs; Kara Elder finding out the recipe for a tomato martini with origins in St. Louis and rural Italy; Nikkitha Bakshani on what memories a cookbook can hold; César Ramón Pérez Madero with a vegan way to make the staple Puerto Rican “jamón cocinar”; Rebecca Thimmesich reporting on why an interiors magazine is publishing so many cookbooks; Layla Schlack defending the 30-minute meal; Devin Kate Pope talking to food writers who are writing fiction; and Apoorva Sripathi on the enduring significance of still lifes in the social media age.
If you’d like to know who I am—Alicia Kennedy, writer, author, and publisher of this magazine—you can learn more about me at my own website. To support this publication and join the community, become a member of From the Desk.
