Lebanese Tomato Salad. Let juice run down your chin.
There’s no simpler, more beloved salad than Lebanese tomato salad. Tomatoes inspired my writing from the start, and that would explain why it made the cover of my cookbook! Use ripe summer tomatoes, of course, and fresh and dried mint to make this a perfect salad. In winter, I still go for it using little grape tomatoes.
When I was in graduate school at Michigan State studying literature, one of my professors was the poet Diane Wakoski. She was widely known to be an exacting teacher of poetry writing, holding students to a standard they had not before experienced and expressing that standard with, shall we say, little sympathy for mediocre writing. In other words, her classes terrified students. For reasons we need not analyze today, I responded well to this approach. I wrote plenty of poems that were unremarkable. Then one week, must have been early fall or a summer term, I wrote about tomatoes.
The poem was not perplexing to read in any way; it was a narrative poem, which means it read more like a little story with lines broken up to distinguish it as ‘poetry.’ And yet this was the poem Professor Wakoski found acceptable. She announced to the class that many a good poet writes a tomato poem (who knew?), and she said a few things about mine that ventured away from the tyrannical and toward the positive. I was mostly relieved but also triumphant—in the days of graduate study, any bone thrown was eaten voraciously—knowing that tomatoes rather than literary theory were along the lines of what I’d like to write about forever more. Tomatoes (like coosa and apricots and strawberries and rose water) were, I was discovering, the vehicles that would carry my mind and writing to territories I longed to explore.
As I reread the poem in light of Monday’s tomato post, it strikes me as kind of funny that I end up with tomato juice on my dress, whereas my father kept his white dress shirt clean. Anyway, I beg your patience as I post the tomato poem from another chapter in my life—Maureen at 23 recollecting Maureen as a child—and of course a recipe for one of the finest ways to eat tomatoes in summer if not directly off the vine: Lebanese tomato salad. Consider this less of a recipe than it is a sketch of what belongs in a Lebanese tomato salad. Rely on your sense of taste to guide you. You’ll combine the few simple ingredients, taste, and ask yourself is your life changed yet? If not, adjust seasoning and taste again.
Tomatoes Calling
Just brought home
from the market of August
the tomatoes take the seat of a queen
in their own bowl on the table.
These are not nice, quiet tomatoes.
Since they left their brown bag,
they have moaned my name,
haunting the house crevice-deep.
I thought eating the tomatoes
would silence them,
but the firm flesh on my tongue
resonates, dissolves the layers of my life,
and here I am a child
standing in the backyard garden
where tomato vines entwine wildly,
curling above my head,
and close to my cheek
hangs the ripe fruit.
I stare at this perfect red tomato
and I know I must pluck it,
and take it home.
When my fingers can’t loosen
the tomato’s stubborn green stem
and the leafy tickle becomes unbearable,
I dig my white sneakers deep into the soil,
turn my face in a reach
and bite through the juicy flesh,
letting seeds run down my chin,
letting red cover the front
of a blue plaid sundress.
Lebanese Tomato Salad
Ingredients
- 2 pounds ripe tomatoes, any shape, size, or color (a variety is nice)
- 20 fresh mint leaves, chopped or torn in small pieces
- 1 medium sweet onion, thinly sliced
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tablespoons Extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- Few grinds black pepper
Instructions
- To slice the tomatoes, use a very sharp or serrated knife and cut them in half through the core end. Cut out the cores. Slice the tomatoes into somewhat irregular 1-inch chunks rather than perfect wedges.
- Place the tomatoes, mint, and onion in a bowl. Add the lemon juice, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Combine and taste. Has your life been changed yet? If not, let the salad rest for a bit, taste again, and adjust the seasonings to get you there.
An Up North favorite is Pond Hill Farm. The place just continues to amaze, from piglets and organic popcorn and squash rockets to wine tasting, harvest dinners, and barn dances. Not to mention the tomatoes.
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I'm so glad you're here! You'll find among these pages the fresh and classic Lebanese recipes we can't get enough of! My mission is to share my tried + true recipes -- and to help our Lebanese food-loving community keep these culinary traditions alive and on the table. What recipes are you looking for? Let me know!
Somehow I was smiling the whole time I read this post. I love the poem, and loved the chance to read it again. And then there was this: “For reasons we need not analyze today, I responded well to this approach.” I’m still chuckling.
xo to you.
Maureen you are so amazing. I love reading your wonderful stories and recipes each day. I am so hooked on your blog. keep them coming. much love virginia
You are the best!! Thank you for reading and cooking…I heard you made the apricot preserves! Wonderful.
Maureen,
I just returned from the store with mint and onion and look forward to your salad for dinner tonight! Your photographs are beautiful. Keep up the wonderful stories!
Virginia (Menzi)
Thank you Virginia! Enjoy the delicious summer salad….
Maureen I am so enjoying your blog, I look forward to every post and postcard! I can’t wait for the Farmer’s Market this Saturday, no grocery store tomato will do for this lovely salad.
Thanks so much–enjoy the salad!!!
Seriously, I can’t believe how much prettier your salad looks than when I usually make it just by “chiffonade-ing” the na-na. Not sure chiffonade-ing is a word–but I will be trying it soon!
Chiffonade-ing is fun!!! And yes, very pretty too….use a really sharp knife…
So excited with this recipe Maureen – I have become an urban farmer growing cherry tomatoes on my balcony! Going to make your recipe this weekend!
Let me know how it comes out!
My family LOVED this recipe! I never would have though to put mint with the tomatoes. Thanks for the great ideas and fabulous recipes! (But the stories might be even better. 🙂
This salad was a big hit at the dinner party we threw this past Labor Day weekend! I’m sure we’ll revisit this recipe a few times in Sept as we have a bumper crop of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes and our Early Girls are finally, and remember this is Seattle, finally ripening.
Maureen, your emotions conveyed by your words and pictures
always put a smile on my face and a nostalgic lump in my throat
and, of course, an immediate need to recreate the recipe immediately!
How could Prof. Wakoski not find your poem “acceptable”? It was wonderful, Maureen!
Much love, Aunt Pat
I need to buy some mint! So I will DEFINITELY make this recipe this week. Yesterday, I bought the BEST beefsteak tomatoes from a local farm store. Thank you SO much for putting this recipe out there! And I did indeed like your poem.
Stephanie, thank you so much! I can’t wait for the beefsteak tomatoes to harvest here in Northern Michigan!
Write more poems! (My mouth is watering…)
Thank you………