This past weekend (June 13-15), there were *3* incredible festivals in the French Quarter -- the Cajun and Zydeco Festival, the Seafood Festival, and the Creole Tomato Festival-- and Big Man and I were there for 2 of the 3 festival days. (Apparently there was also a Latino Festival going on at the same time, as an add-on or sub-festival. Oh well -- the more, the merrier, we always say.)
It was all fabulous, as you might imagine -- incredible music, interesting crafts, terrific people-watching, great sense of community, topped off with wonderful, well-priced food. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously, feeling even that the rain on Friday and Saturday was a welcome addition, as it cooled things off and, as Big Man said, thinned out the crowds a bit. The food we sampled, from the things we paid for -- the crab and crawfish cakes, the boiled shrimp and crawfish (complete with corn, potatoes and sausage, naturally), the fantastic chargrilled oysters (yikes!), the shrimp on a stick, the homemade lemonade -- to the chef's tasting freebies -- the local ceviche, the shrimp and bean salad, the incredible seared tuna with black sesame seed crust (holy toledo!) -- were uniformly off-the-charts marvelous.
One thing, however, stands out above all over foods at the fests. In a week with saturated media coverage of an e. coli scare from tomatoes imported from Mexico, our Louisiana Creole tomatoes were not only certifiably safe to eat, they were fabulous. On Friday, we bought several fat red Creoles as big as a newborn baby's head (at $1 a piece!), and couldn't wait to eat them that night at home. Sweet, tart, acidic, meaty, juicy -- they fulfilled everything you wanted in a tomato, and put me in mind of the Creoles my mom used to include in our brown-bag lunches at elementary school (Our Lady of Prompt Succor in Chalmette, if you must know) back in the day, with a little packet of salt for us to add as we bit into them. So great a taste, that you would gladly make a meal just of tomatoes (with a little Blue Plate, of course).
But then, the next day, we came across the booth selling *heirloom Creole tomatoes.* What's the difference?, you ask -- well, it's like night and day. If regular Creole tomatoes can make you hate and despise store-bought tomatoes (or maybe I should say "tomatoes"), then these heirloom Creoles are on a different plane altogether, like food the gods get to eat.
First of all, they were GORGEOUS -- bright golden yellow, orange with yellow streaks, and this strangely beautiful brownish-reddish-greenish color. We bought 4 of the biggest ones, which were packaged upscaled in a nice white paper rectangular takeout box. When we got home, I washed them, sliced them thick as steaks, and arranged them on plate with some fresh boiled shrimp. I sprinkled some sea salt, added a little mound of Blue Plate mixed with Creole mustard, and we went to it. The whole time Big Man and I were eating this simple cold dinner, we kept *moaning* "Ohmygod" and long-drawn-out "Woooowwws." It was heaven on a plate.
So now we're kicking ourselves: WHY didn't we ask that tomato farmer where we could find his heavenly heirloom Creole tomatoes when the festival was over?? (If anybody knows, please let us know. We're willing to drive.)
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