ArcaMax

Wow, thanks for ordering me. You're going to love... wait.

No, no, no, hold on, please don't peel me off and throw me in the bottom of the Wendy's sack with the bag fries. I promise, I am delicious. I am juicy and sweet, the perfect acidic complement to cut through your sizzled ground beef and melty American cheese. We'll make a beautiful burger together if you give me a chance.

Florida tomato? What is a Flor-i-da tomato? I'm clearly a tempting purple heirloom grown by a country woman in a bonnet, nurtured in a raised bed surrounded by downy blankets of compost and mulch. I am special, as you can clearly see by my deep, rich, uh...

Fine. You know what? You win. I'm tired of begging for love from uptight foodies on patios who've had so much sauvignon blanc they're more plowed than my fields.

I'm a Florida field tomato, baby! I'm the husky golden child of Big Ag, flopped on your catered lunch buffet next to sweating cold cuts. I'm chopped to bits on top of sad iceberg shreds, drowned lasciviously in ranch, even hurled at jesters in the stocks at Renaissance fairs. I shine when obscured in cheese and breadcrumbs.

That's because I'm designed to be tough and go the distance, literally, in a long-haul truck with Steely Dan blaring up in the cab. I'm barely pigmented, picked too early and ripened artificially with gas. I've been described as "just red enough to be a flag."

I taste like a watermelon rind splashed with bathwater. By the time you suffer through my bland, mealy exterior, you are so removed from the memory of flavor that you hardly notice my bone-white core. Caprese? More like craprese. When it comes to me, angel, you've never had such an OK time.

But get over it, because you're about to eat more of me. Starting July 14, President Donald Trump's administration is slapping a 21% tariff on tomatoes from Mexico, which has long ruled the tomato kingdom with its low-cost greenhouses and optimal conditions, pfft. Well, the open trade of the 1990s went out of style like a Sundried Me. Pony up or come home to daddy!

Important people with titles are fighting over me, so why aren't you? On one side, they're saying Mexico uses unfair trade practices rotten for Florida tomato farmers. Others think tariffs will juice costs for everyone, not just Mexico, and that trade wars and immigration sweeps are causing my brothers to turn saucy and die on the vine.

What do I think? I stay out of politics, buttercup. It only divides us the way the 19-year-old Subway sandwich artist named Caden divides me into plastic tubs. The truth is, I'm just happy people are talking about me again, even if they are calling me "soggy cardboard" and "Styrofoam."

For too long, I have been abandoned on diner placemats, yanked from BLTs (BLs), passed over on Fourth of July picnics in favor of my archnemesis, ketchup. Ketchup is nothing without me. I mean, of course I taste great when boiled down with a metric ton of corn syrup. So do you, sugar lips. So does everything.

But I deserve affection as much as that pearly red starlet shining in your summer pasta salad. So you're going to love me whether you like it or not. Just remember that next time you're on your high horse salivating over a Mexican Roma while I'm lying on the curb outside a Circle K. Conditions are just ripe enough for my comeback, and I'm raring to grow.

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Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on X or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

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