For almost my entire lift, I have had a grave disgust and borderline phobia of, very specifically, raw tomatoes. When I was younger and more naive, I thought nothing of it, but as my frontal lobe has developed and established itself, that disregard turned into longing, which in turn transformed into curiosity. Now, at the mediocre age of 27, I have set out a goal for myself: teach myself to like raw tomatoes. I have decided, no longer will I look at a caprese salad with fear, longing to join my friends in the enjoyment of an heirloom tomato, 2026 is the year I take fate by the hand and enjoy tomatoes.
For context, I, for some reason, find that raw tomatoes taste like blood. It could be the minerality of it all, it could be the combinations of flavours that it have been served to me. This is all also funny and ironic because I have eaten blood before (black pudding) and liked it.
This will be a documented journey, of my week by week attempts and reflections on eating tomatoes.
My first attempt at eating raw tomatoes is starting with a little toe dip in the water. I am beginning with arguably the easiest of tomatoes: Cherry; in the most palatable of processing techniques: Marination.
I sliced the cherry tomatoes in half, and left them to sit in this marinade (no measurements im sorry):
• Sesame oil
• Sesame oil
• rice vinegar
• Umesu Ume Plum vinegar
• white miso
• salt
• sugar
• grated garlic
• grated ginger
I left the cherry tomatoes to marinate for a few hours, and enjoyed them as a little side dish with my attempt and making Kong-guksu, a Korean cold noodle dish with a soymilk broth.
Reflection
My reflection on this first attempt was that I could barely taste that blood-minerality flavour, it was covered by the vinegar and the other stronger flavours. While this was a good first attempt and removed the fear and disgust from this experiment, I strived to try for a more daring second trial.
25 January, 2026
Trial #1
My second trial I went for a more daring combination, one that in the past i have tried and most definitely not liked: Balsamic.
While I normally love balsamic vinegar in salads, for some reason when I've tried tomatoes with balsamic, I have strongly disliked it in the past. For this attempt, I tried a similar tactic to last week, where I marinated the tomatoes, but with a lighter flavoured marinade this time. The recipe is as such:
• Balsamic vinegar
• Balsamic vinegar
• grated garlic
• dried mint
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
For this week, I served the marinated tomatoes by straining them, and topping them with burrata, toasted pita chips, and a drizzle of white truffle oil (curtesy of Trader Joes).
Reflection
This second trial i believe was a success at the goal set out: I was no longer afraid of the combination of balsamic vinegar and tomatoes. So now moving forward, I could try this combination knowing I have a positive experience as precedent. The burrata did slightly over power any flavour of tomatoes, but overall this was a tasty second experiment.
30 January, 20206
Trial #2