Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

When my mother deemed me old enough to cross Highway 23 South alone, she would give me a $5 bill and tell me to walk to Mrs. Benandi’s house and buy a box of Creole tomatoes. I would walk there, buy the box of tomatoes, and start my walk back home. The tomatoes on the top row of the box were all perfectly ripe, practically bursting out of their bright red skins. The ones under the little shelf of cardboard were slightly less ripe, a bit more green, to space out the consumption of the box of treasure.

I grew up in Port Sulphur, Louisiana, a town about 45 miles southeast of New Orleans. Creole tomatoes was only one of the treasures grown in the fertile soil of the Mississippi Delta area of Plaquemines Parish. We had a naval orange tree and a satsuma (orange) tree in our backyard, along with a persimmon tree that I was too young and stupid to know enough to enjoy. We had fresh seafood multiple times a week, and being a pre-Vatican II Catholic, we only ate seafood on Fridays all year round. Every Friday night we had a seafood boil at my Uncle Guy’s, boiled crabs or shrimp or crawfish, whatever was in season. We had fried fish, whatever my uncle had caught that day. My mom would roast ducks from my uncle’s recent hunting trip. Mr. Farac would drop off a sack of oysters fresh from the waters of his oyster beds, and my dad would shuck them outside on the side of the house, one for his mouth, the next for the bowl that would eventually go inside for my mom to fry.

The smell wafting from Mrs. Benandi’s open box of Creole tomatoes was heaven to me. As I walked home, I just couldn’t resist taking one of the ripest ones from that top row and biting into it, just like an apple. Juice would be running down my chin and down my arm. I’d get to the core, nibble around it not to waste a single bit of the sweet flesh, and toss the core in the long grass along the side of the road. In a drunken-like haze I would then eat another, and another, and another, until the top row was completely gone, and I was then standing in the kitchen door way with a half of a box of (unripe) Creole tomatoes. My mother would be so angry with me, but I just couldn’t help myself. Some summers I would actually get little sores inside my mouth from the acid in all the tomatoes I would eat, many of them on my walk from Mrs. Benandi’s house.

I have a long list of favorite Louisiana foods: Uncle Guy’s gumbo, Aunt Lillian’s peanut butter fudge, my mom’s shrimp creole, Aunt Una’s crawfish bisque and crawfish étouffée, Italian stuffed artichokes, Uncle Joe’s jambalaya, Aunt Helen’s stewed green beans and potatoes, Aunt Hilda’s pecan pie, my mom’s potato salad, my dad’s stewed chicken, cousin Penny’s shrimp mold, Nanny Pat’s pecan tarts, etc. But, of all my favorite Louisiana foods, my most favorite is Creole tomatoes.

That is why my brother Tommy made me the happiest person on earth yesterday when he met me for lunch and handed me two boxes of Creole tomatoes.

We live in Maryland, but we are in Louisiana for my high school reunion. We flew in on Tuesday and visited my husband’s family for two days. Yesterday, we met my brother for lunch at a seafood restaurant.

As soon as we got back to my brother-in-law’s house after lunch, I immediately made myself a tomato sandwich and stood at the kitchen counter and took a huge bite. This was just after eating a platter of thin fried catfish, hush puppies, and Cole slaw. I wasn’t the least bit hungry, and to be honest, I haven’t had a sandwich since January 12, when I decided to reduce the carbs in my diet to improve the results of my recent blood work. But, there simply isn’t anything better (IMO) than a thickly sliced Creole tomato on toasted white bread with mayonnaise, salt, and pepper.

This was the taste of my summers growing up, and it simply can’t be replicated with tomatoes from anywhere else in the world. Believe me I’ve tried, in two states, and on two continents.

This morning, after packing up to leave my brother-in-law’s house to head to Mississippi for the reunion, I had a Creole tomato sandwich and a cup of Louisiana Community Coffee for breakfast. After sharing some of my luscious bounty with my husband’s family, I took the rest in the car with us. Guess what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow?