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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] "A passion for tomatoes"
  • Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:12:34 -0600


"A passion for tomatoes"
A grower and a chef combine to create a heavenly feast of heirloom
varieties

Craig LeHoullier tends to some of the 105 varieties of heirloom
tomatoes that he grows at his North Raleigh home.
Staff Photos by Travis Long
By SAMANTHA THOMPSON SMITH, Staff Writer


RALEIGH -- Craig LeHoullier was barely through the first course when
he put his fork down and sat back contented in his chair. "My
tomatoes have been taken to heaven," he said. He was right. It
almost didn't seem right that old tomatoes - tomatoes with histories
that go back for generations - could taste so good.
Last week, they did.

Two of Raleigh's most obsessed foodies -- one for heirloom tomatoes
and one for cooking -- collaborated for a unique dinner at Enoteca
Vin to show the culinary power of heirloom tomatoes.

LeHoullier supplied the tomatoes, and Ashley Christensen did the
cooking.

You may have heard of Christensen. She's one of Raleigh's best known
chefs, mostly for her work at Enoteca Vin in Raleigh's Glenwood
South.

But LeHoullier? He's another story.

LeHoullier has become a cult figure of sorts in international
heirloom tomato growing circles. He and his wife, Susan LeHoullier,
who live in North Raleigh, have been growing heirloom tomatoes since
he became bored growing regular tomatoes back in 1986.

We're not talking about just a few varieties, mind you. The
LeHoulliers are hyper-tomato growers. This year, they have 105
varieties, all growing either in pots in the driveway or in the 30-
by-50 foot garden next to their suburban house. That's in addition
to the eggplant, peppers and basil scattered among the rows and pots
of tomatoes.

This is not just a simple hobby. Over the years, LeHoullier has
collected more than 1,700 seed varieties, even resurrecting a few
long-forgotten heirloom tomato varieties over the years from the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. He's written articles. He's named a
few varieties. And every summer, he studies each variety he plants
to see how well it grows in his soil and what kinds of diseases it
can withstand.

Other growers throughout the world know him through his Web site
(aptly called http://nctomatoman.topcities.com) that's packed with
all sorts of information about his tomato growing adventures. Here
you'll find LeHoullier's meticulously kept spreadsheets on heirloom
tomato varieties, complete with pictures of seedlings, leaf shapes
and what the fruit looks like unripe and ripened.

Regulars at the State Farmers Market might know the couple for the
heirloom tomato plants they sell each April and May. They start
growing the plants in February at home from the seeds LeHoullier has
collected and dried himself from tomatoes they grew and later ate
the previous summer.

So when LeHoullier teamed up last week with Christensen, who is
known for her near obsession about using local produce in her food,
it was a meeting of two fanatics.

On the menu: A salad, chilled soup, risotto, seared lamb and
dessert, all with various green, orange, yellow and red heirloom
tomatoes in different shapes and sizes from the LeHoulliers' garden.

Christensen used her trademark skill of helping keep the integrity
of food flavors through simple cooking techniques.

"We tried to write the menu so that everything was really about the
tomatoes," she said. "We tried to let the nature of the tomato be
the defining character of the dish."

It's the flavor

But then again, she had plenty to work with in LeHoullier's
heirlooms. Heirloom tomatoes, which are grown from seeds that have
been saved over generations and handed down, often by family
members, typically are more flavorful than store-bought hybrids that
are sometimes picked green and then gassed to help ripen them.

Their often quirky names -- such as Mortgage Lifter and Lucky Cross -
- help tell their stories or describe their heritage. And LeHoullier
knows most of those stories, either from hearing them from family
members or through his exhaustive research.

The dinner had a mix of some of LeHoullier's favorites.

There were Mexico Midgets (a pea-sized tomato brought into the
United States from Mexico by a truck driver) in the risotto.
Cherokee Purples (which LeHoullier named back in 1990) appeared in
the North Carolina lump crabmeat salad. Mortgage Lifters (named by a
man who was able to pay off his mortgage during the Depression by
selling the tomato plants) were featured in the spicy chilled
heirloom tomato soup. And even dessert, basil panna cotta, was
topped by a salsa made with Cossack Pineapples (a pineapple-flavored
cherry tomato also known as husk tomato.)

"What I'm delighted about is that she let the tomatoes speak for
themselves," LeHoullier said after the four-hour dinner. "There's no
way to describe this."

Christensen had her own particular favorite: the Mexico Midget,
mostly because of its tiny size. "It hits on quite a few senses,"
she said. "I like the idea of being able to experience something as
a whole like that, with the texture of the skin, the pop and the
inside that's so sweet."

Even those who don't know a Brandywine from a German Johnson were
able understand the growing fuss in recent years about heirloom
tomatoes and their unique tastes.

"I think she really respected the different flavors," said Steve
Gruber, who was one of 16 people at the dinner. "She was really good
about bringing that out."

Every day in summer

This was no ordinary meal for the LeHoulliers. During summer's
heirloom tomato growing season, which usually ends in late September
or early October, tomatoes are part of everyday eating at their
home. But they normally go a little less Vin-like and more
traditional, still using Christensen's trick of keeping the
ingredients simple to let the tomato flavors stand on their own.

For instance, they usually use their Cherokee Purples in tomato
grilled cheese sandwiches with pumpernickel bread and Shelburne
Farms cheddar. Or they create a pasta salad using the Cherokee
Purples, olive oil, mozzarella and basil. They can their tomatoes,
too, so they can enjoy their Brandywines and Andrew Rahart's Jumbo
Reds into winter.

LeHoullier and Christensen had collaborated before. Earlier this
month, they set up a sampling table at the Durham Farmers' Market.
The LeHoulliers gave out tomato samples while Christensen whipped up
some salsa.

Julie Young, Vin's event coordinator, introduced the two last
summer. Young, an avid organic gardner and heirloom seed
preservationist, had heard about LeHoullier for years through the
Seed Savers Exchange organization. She was surprised when she later
learned LeHoullier was from Raleigh. So she sought him out at the
Farmers Market and later invited him to speak at a Farmers Market
dinner at Vin last summer.

She recalls how Christensen and LeHoullier hit it off, mostly
because the two are so similar in the intensity of their
passions. "They're both maniacs about what they do," she said.

So it wasn't a surprise when the two planted the seeds last summer
for this year's dinner.

While the pairing was a success, LeHoullier was reluctant to promise
more collaborations with area restaurants. He doesn't have enough
garden space to go commercial. And he probably doesn't have enough
entrepreneurial drive, he said. But then again, LeHoullier's passion
for tomatoes is only part of his life; he has a full-time job in
business change management and consulting at GlaxoSmithKline.

If anything, he plans to write a book about his tomato growing
knowledge when he gets the time.

"It's so incredible what he does," Young said. "And he does it for
all the right reasons. They don't care a lot about money. They just
believe in a quality life. They care about changing the earth."




  • [Livingontheland] "A passion for tomatoes", Tradingpost, 08/30/2005

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