End of summer recipes: fried green tomatoes with grapes and more

plus how to access the September Cook Along

I love summer when it’s just beginning. Those early weeks of June are brimming with anticipation, days are finally longer and I have a feeling that I might even enjoy summer, after all. I will be able to enjoy dinners al fresco in the garden, day trips to the coast, and long walks in the morning.

But then heatwave after heatwave my goodwill crumbles. Summer is hot, sticky, relentless, exhausting, cruel. All I’m left with is a strong desire for crisp, fall weather, school time, apple cakes and warming black tea in the morning.

I endure the peak of summer convinced that I was born in the wrong country, even though I am still joyously cooking my way through classes and great produce. I might love autumn, but I came to terms with my tormented love affair with summer.

When summer is about to end, a sudden twist of fate. I fiercely love summer again when it’s fading away, when days are getting shorter, the light is warm and golden, and figs dot the trees in the early days of September.

These days, I’m constantly pondering if that will be the last slice of cantaloupe with prosciutto, the last time I will find buttery soft green beans on the market stalls. Have I eaten enough blackberries from the brambles while I was having my morning walk? Will the tomato preserve jars be enough to make it through the year till next summer?

If hope and enthusiasm are the feelings that characterize the first weeks of June, when summer is still unripe, as is its abundant produce, it is nostalgia that dominates these end-of-summer weeks.

The last days of summer are the realm of mixed feelings: On one side, these days are filled with melancholy for everything that is fading out, but on the other hand, here comes the enthusiasm for a new season that is knocking on the kitchen door, bringing the earthy smell of mushrooms and chestnuts.

It is nostalgia for all the missed occasions, for the already almost forgotten seaside holiday, for the abundance of seasonal produce—eggplants! tomatoes! zucchini! green beans!—that I will surely miss during the long cabbage and bitter leafy vegetables.

This is when I cook the most, trying to condense these flavours and mixed feelings into some memorable dishes.

A few end-of-summer recipes to enjoy this season to the last bit

• Poached pears with mascarpone pastry cream. Over the years, I’ve grown fond of that light, delicate touch a fruit dessert gives to a meal, often a more balanced end than a slice of cake (paywalled recipe).

• Schiacciata con l’uva - grape focaccia. All the aroma, colour, and sweetness of a single just-picked grape are found in this grape schiacciata, my childhood snack whose flavour always signified the end of summer and the return to school.

• Buckwheat cake from Alto Adige. Sitting in one of those picturesque mountain huts, I tried for the first time this buckwheat cake, rustic and dense, with a thick layer of redcurrant jam and a side of barely sweetened whipped cream (paywalled recipe).

• Green tomato galette. This is a quick pastry dough, my favourite for savoury pies. You can make it in five minutes, and it has only four very common ingredients, which are usually in all the pantries. Moreover, it puffs up while baking almost by magic. Make a galette with green tomatoes, goat cheese, pine nuts, and basil, a lot of basil.

• September jam. You just need the fruit that ripens in September: the vine grapes – whether black or white, depending on what you have or is left over from the harvest -, freshly picked figs, sticky and sweet, and tiny wild apples. Combine everything and simmer until the fruit falls apart, giving the preserve the time it needs. Then add some sugar to make everything as sweet as honey and to preserve the jam for the following months in your pantry.

• Green tomato pesto. You make it while the pasta is cooking, using those green tomatoes from your garden that just don’t want to get ripe. If you don’t have a vegetable garden, go to the market: among the ripe ones, now you can spot the green tomatoes, and it is often the farmers themselves who will tell you the best recipes to use them. Listen to them, that’s how I add new recipes to my repertoire!

• Chilled peaches in wine, for the last summer dinners and for when you are invited to a barbecue and run out of time to bake a proper dessert.

• Fried green tomatoes with grapes. The best end-of-summer dish! More on this below.

---

The September Cook Along

We will meet SUNDAY, September 17th at 9.00 pm CET - 3.00 pm EDT - 12.00 pm PDT. We will talk about our favourite end-of-summer recipes, including the surprisingly delicious fried green tomatoes with grapes.

This is an event designed for those who subscribed to Letters from Tuscany: we’re slowly building friendships and shared memories and having lots of fun!

As always, it will be a moment when we cook together, but you can join just to have a chat, or a laugh, ask questions, share stories, or simply listen while having a good cup of tea (or wine, according to where you are!)

Scroll to the bottom, where you will find the link to join the Cook Along and the recipe for the fried green tomatoes below the fold.

And please let me know in the comments if you’ll be there, so I can wait for you!

RECIPE - Fried green tomatoes with grapes

This dish belongs to peasant cooking, it is prepared only for a very short time, when the tomatoes on the vines do not have enough sun to ripen. The farmers would find themselves with baskets of green tomatoes and ripe bunches of grapes. I’d love to hug the first person who came up with this idea of pairing green tomatoes and grapes.

There are only five ingredients – green tomatoes, grapes, basil, garlic, and chilli – yet each one is essential. The pan-fried green tomatoes are meaty and fresh, the grapes add a delicate sweet note, the garlic, and the basil give an aromatic twist, and the chilli warms it up.