Strange, the way life works

I find life rather full of odd coincidences. Too full.

Yesterday, I was flipping through some photo folders on my computer when I saw the shot of the tomatoes I featured here late late summer. They looked so good. I have not had fresh tomatoes since our wintering supply ran out in mid-December. Fresh tomatoes will not reappear on our plates here until the first harvest sometimes in July, an event I eagerly anticipate every year. I put the tomato photo up on Facebook as my profile picture along with a comment about missing tomatoes and looking forward to winter's end. I know I could just buy some, but they never taste right when from a grocery store, so I have not done that in years. It is so tempting when I am in Brennan's and the little stacks of tomatoes look so appealing, though.

Today, I opened up my new issue of Gourmet. There was a photo of a worker picking tomatoes in the "Politics of the Plate" section. The article was titled "The Price of Tomatoes: if you have eaten a tomato this winter, it might well have been picked by a person who lives in virtual slavery". Shocking statement.

The article details conditions in the United States, not some Latin American or Third World country. It talks about cases in Florida. Florida. Men and women held in appalling conditions of involuntary servitude. People who are in our country illegally, but still people. People who may work all day to pick up to a ton of green, hard tomatoes for about $50, but who are held in slavery and company store conditions of spiraling debt. Over 1,000 people freed by law enforcement officials since 1997; that is only the 1,000 we know about.

To quote the article:
But when asked if it is reasonable to assume that an American who has eaten a fresh tomato from a grocery story or food service company during the winter has eaten a fruit picked by the hand of a slave, Malloy said, "It is not an assumption. It is a fact."

Suddenly the thought of waiting months to taste a fresh tomato again seems a lot more acceptable.