Les Tomates

On through the summer comes a bounty of green vegetables, the tiny peas and various beans which are the mainstay of the vegetable garden, the fresh lettuce and other salads and the big, fleshy tomatoes. We are not here talking about the kind of tomato which seems to have taken over the market in Britain, the perfectly round fruit the size of a golf ball, full of rather acid juice and pips but with no flesh. It would be better if tomatoes for cooking had no juice or pips at all: Indeed it is a counsel of perfection in France to remove as much of both as possible before starting to cook tomatoes.