Review: Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook

Tomatoland is a great book. A dark, scary, underbelly-of-the-ag-industry book.

 Buy on Amazon: Tomatoland, Third Edition: From Harvest of Shame to Harvest of Hope 

If you’ve ever eaten a tomato in the winter and you live in a latitude where winter means snow, perhaps you’ve wondered how a tomato appeared in your market when it was cold enough outside to freeze honey. According to Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland, if you live in the Northeast U.S., that tomato most likely came from Florida.

Tomatoland begins as Estabrook is driving through Florida, following a tractor-trailer truck that he believes is loaded with Granny Smith apples. After a few of the fruit-in-question sail off the truck and hit his car, he examines the projectiles only to discover that they’re hard, indestructible green tomatoes. Thus begins Estabrook’s journey into how multi-billion dollar corporations have turned a delicious fruit into something unsavory.

Why are so many tomatoes grown in Florida when the weather is the worst for growing them?

Florida, it turns out, has one of the worst climates and worst soils in which to grow tomatoes: the air is very humid (tomatoes prefer bone dry), which makes the plants very susceptible to a litany of fungal diseases; tomatoes did not evolve in Florida, so they haven’t adapted to the insect life there – consequently, hordes of pests continuously munch on the plants, and the soil is sandy and porous (tomatoes prefer loamy soils). As a result, tomatoes in Florida are awash in a mind-boggling amount of fertilizers and pesticides.

So why bother growing tomatoes in a climate so inhospitable? The reason is simple: Florida is within trucking distance of major metropolitan centers like Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City.

“Ground zero for modern-day slavery”

The most striking revelation in Tomatoland is the abhorrent treatment of Florida’s field workers, many of whom have entered the country illegally, speak no English, and have an inherent fear of law enforcement. Thus, the workers’ abuse goes largely unreported for fear of reprisals.

But Tomatoland isn’t all downside. Estabrook also explores the origins of the tomato on the shores of Ecuador, where botanists believe it originated, its domestication by Mayan farmers in ancient Mexico, its introduction to Europe by Spanish explorers, its further development by the British for its believed curative powers, and its extensive modern breeding in North America. He also spends some time with a chemical-free tomato grower from eastern Pennsylvania nicknamed Tomatoman, who sells gourmet tomatoes on the streets of New York City and supplies fine restaurants there. Tomatoman’s tomatoes are so popular and so delicious that he can barely keep up with demand.

Estabrook is extremely deft at weaving all of these elements into what sometimes is a mystery and is always an exciting story of great discoveries in Tomatoland.