Tomato Fest, France

I'll soon be off to catch the end of the French tomato season. However much you pay, wherever you shop, whatever you grow, it is literally not possible to have a true tomato experience in the UK. Toms in Britain are more acidic and the textures are all broken up into skin, seeds, liquid, and solid flesh. In France, in season, they are juicy, fruity, smooth and soft. Not pappy, mind, just with synergistic textures that are tender but satisfying.

Tomato jelly with goats' cheese, France

Anyway, there are some growing in my garden in France, so I am very excited about making the most of them while I'm there. They are the montfavet variety, and I am also looking forward to buying some luscious marmande ones from the village market - they come in all shapes, sizes and colours, and the stall owners ask what you are going to use them for, before selecting suitable specimens from the pile.

Here's what I did with homegrown French tomatoes one year, when I had a glut (see photo above). Now, though, they will be a novelty again, so will probably all end up as tomato salads, which are a completely different and a stupendously delicious dish, if made with the French tomatoes. Hmmm and atop pizzas, and maybe a few gazpachos, and in more imaginative salads. Yeah, well I might play a bit, but no jelly - I'll need all my time to eat tomatoes, and won't have any left to fiddle around with them.