Cruel summer tomato crab salad. I hope it sounds delicious and not like I’m complaining because a summer tomato crab salad is hardly cruel all on its own. In fact crab is a special ingredient that’s usually reserved for special meals. Special meals take a bit of effort. A bit more effort than I care to exert on a cruel summer afternoon when I’d rather be lounging under a tree or sitting at a picnic table. Which is where the tomato slices come in. Tomato slices make this tomato crab salad with fennel and watercress a special meal.
Tomato Crab Salad
Tomato slices have a lot of nostalgic power for me. First, because tomatoes remind me of summers past– at least the very best of them. Sure most of us can get some version of a tomato all year long. We chop them into salads or puree them into sauces. But when summer rolls around we simply slice them into thick slabs and make them the center of a meal. Crab just makes these tomato slices more special. But really it’s the tomato slices that are special all on their own– and they always have been.
Summers weren’t always cruel. Sure they were hot, but the summers of my youth were defined by a lazy sort of haze. It’s the memory of all that slow space and time that make the busy days and nights of adult summers seem to cruelly mock me as I trudge sweatily through life.
You see, when I was a kid summer was three long months and was stretched out even further by impossibly long days. Days that were often filled with nothing but the expectation of more of the same. As a kid I remember spending whole days underneath the picnic table in our suburban Michigan backyard. It was a rather humble little table. The kind with benches attached and a hole for an umbrella that we never even owned. Purchased at Sears with all the promise of the impending summer and assembled as a family project. It was set underneath a maple tree. The first few cookouts of the summer made that little table the center of family life. But as the summer trickled on, the heat drove my parents inside. The newness of that cheap little table wore off like the fake redwood stain adorning its planks. That’s when the table fulfilled its true purpose as it alternatively became Captain Kirk’s bridge or William Clark’s and Meriwether Lewis’ canoe. I remember my mom brought out plates of sliced tomatoes for me to eat– sometimes that was dinner because the heat made it too cruel to cook. Or at least that’s the way I remember it. GREG
“The newness of that cheap little table wore off like the fake redwood stain adorning its planks.” what a great line, Greg. I can just see you under and on that table like Calvin & Hobbes.
I’ve yet to lay my eyes on the freshest crab meat out there. There’s just no luck where we live.
Oh well. Looks like I’ll have to live vicariously through this delicious recipe 🙂
Can’t wait for our garden tomatoes. The tomatoes I buy in the store can hardly be called tomatoes, they’re so pale and hard and tasteless.
What can I say — I am Adri, the Picky Eater, and I shy away from crab. Just the same, this looks terribly tempting, and I dare say the salad alone would be grand. Wasn’t it nice to be little and think summer was too long? In fact, when I was little, it seemed everything was too long!
Now I miss the midwest! Especially the part of the midwestern summer when it’s too hot to do anything, so you go out to whatever lake is closest for the day. I also lived in Michigan for 5 years (after growing up in Chicago)–it’s so beautiful there. This salad looks perfect for long, hot summer days.
I’m one of those people that buys crab at $20 just because I want one crabcake. Now I’ll be thinking crab salad. Wish I could get fennel pollen as easily as you can. If I remember, it grows up the street from you.
I saw the most succulent looking crab just yesterday at one of our local fishmongers. I had crab salad in mind but will have to go back since I will not be cooking for the next few days. I love the idea of stuffing it into a tomato.
I’ve discovered that Costco sells fresh crabmeat for less than my fish market, so I’m eager to try this. Where did you grow up in Michigan? I went to Kalamazoo College and have a soft spot in my heart for Michigan…