Fried Green Tomatoes

“My aunt Mary Ellen told my father, Lord have mercy on him, when he was going up to the mountain to the forestry ‘Why are you bringing oil skins on such a fine day?’. He replied ‘Any fool would bring oil skins on a wet day’”. (Bernard Kelly, Ballycommane)

The rugged gentlemen who live on our hillside always have an ability to tell, even on a fine day, whether it will rain before the night is out. This year they haven't had to guess. It has rained every day on our hill, even when it isn't raining in nearby Bantry. Our elevation has attracted a bubble of nimbostratus that refuses to shift.

All our neighbours agree, this is the worst summer in living memory. None of our vegetables have ripened.

The only bright side of farming on this hillside is that the fields are ancient and unploughed. The furze – the gorse that is rampant – has steadied the soil, and the grazing cattle can do no harm to it. Unlike the dairy farmers surrounding us, whose animals are tearing up the fields in grass that is far more sodden even than grass in winter.

They always worry around here about bringing in the hay. Now they can't even bring in the silage.

It's not all doom and gloom. There is a positive resort to prayer, and a hope that all will recover. "Sure we may well be roashting at Christmas, it may be a good winter" said Bernard Kelly, our profoundly knowledgeable neighbour. It's hard, though, to keep cheerful when the weather seems to be throwing biblically-proportioned trouble on an already troubled community. A community that is once again facing mass emigration.

This is a peninsula that lives from tourism, farming and construction – all industries that have been decimated in the last 12 months due to man's folly and nature's stubborn dominion.

But this is a resilient hillside that has seen more lean times than fat. We rally. Even amidst the gloomy greyness the people around here find it easy to smile. The feral beauty of our hillside instills us all with a perpetual holiday mood, no matter how long we have lived here.

And so, smiling alongside them, we wonder what, especially, to do with all our unripened, blight-threatened, green tomatoes. 

Fried Green Tomatoes

Green tomatoes
Flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
Egg, beaten
Polenta
Oil

Slice the tomatoes. Dip into flour, then egg, then polenta. Fry in oil. Drain on kitchen paper and serve with chilli sauce.