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“Trend Alert! Fried Green Tomatoes”

I grew up in Queens, a place where fried green tomatoes did not exist. We had smoked fish, bagels, falafel, pizza, and knishes, but fried green tomatoes? Not so much. In fact, it wasn’t until the movie (based on the Fannie Flagg book) Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café came out in 1987 that I’d even heard of this curious riff on summer’s most prized crop.

But these days, green tomatoes are getting fried up all over town. And I couldn’t be happier about it. First of all they’re delicious—a fried food that combines the salty crunch of deep-fried breading with the refreshing limey tartness of a sun-soaked fruit picked too early. Second, with all this salmonella in tomatoes madness, it’s a way to get your tomatoes without any bonus parasites.

I first discovered them on the bar menu at Irving Mill (16 East 16th Street, 212-254-1600) a few weeks ago, where chef Johnny Schaefer serves the tart juicy circles of green in a crunchy wrapper of hot golden breading with a cool soothing buttermilk dressing as a dipping sauce ($8). Then, last week, I had an order of fantastic fried green tomatoes as an appetizer at Hundred Acres (38 MacDougal St. @ Prince St., 212-475-7500), where chef de cuisine Joel Hough seals their bright juices inside a cape of crisp breading and plates them with a little bowl paprika aioli for dunking. I also noticed their they were on the Café menu at Country (90 Madison Avenue, 889-7100), where executive sous chef Blake Joyal breads them in zippy mixture of panko, Parmesan, lemon zest, cayenne and parsley with a preserved lemon aioli and fiery charred corn and chile relish on top ($8).

As a riff on the Caprese salad, chef David Rotter is serving them at Campo (2888 Broadway at 112th, 212-864-1143) layered with fresh mozzarella (put this on a sandwich please) and at Jonathan Waxman’s Madeleine Mae (461 Columbus Avenue at 82nd Street, 212-496-3000) they’re served in a sort of picnic-style salad with baby red potatoes, green beans and buttermilk dressing ($15.95).

After consuming about a half-dozen different takes on the fried green tomato, I was (aside from full) rather was curious about their history. (I get that way with food. I love learning a little something about its history.) I wondered, who had the forethought to fry these unripened beauties? I had thought they were a Southern staple but my research was a bit sketchy, and I wanted to be sure so I called my friend Andrew Smith, a culinary historian who is the author of books like the Oxford Companion to American Food and the upcoming Andrew F. Smith, Hamburger: A Global History (London: Reaktion Books, 2008).

Turns out, I was wrong. Fried green tomatoes, Andy told me, were actually an early 19th century invention of Northern farmers. The Southern origin of the fried green tomatoes is a myth. “During the early 19th century farmers in the North were plagued by leftover tomatoes that had to be cleared off the vines before the first frost,” he explained. “They couldn’t eat them raw, so they fried them.”  The long story was published in an article he wrote:

“In Northern climates, usually large numbers of unripe, green tomatoes remained on the vine when the first frost hit. As little was wasted in 19th century rural America, the green tomatoes were preserved as pickles, and used in ketchups, sauces and pies. Green tomatoes were also served to cows and pigs; and the juice was used as a dye. The first published reference to frying green tomatoes appeared in an 1835 issue of the New England Farmer, which reported that they should be sliced, like apples, and fried in butter….The first recipe for frying green tomatoes is credited to John Cowan, in his What to Eat and How to Cook It (New York, 1870).”

Granted, since the late 1800s Southerners have usurped the fried green tomato as their own, but from the looks of things, we may be on our way to taking them back. Enjoy them and let me know what you think!

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Posted: July 13, 2008

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