sugary sweet...

raise your hand if you knew that a can of del monte stewed tomatoes contains HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.

this irritates the heck out of me.

how did i make this discovery, you ask? well, it's okra season, and i love me some okra. i recently ran across a couple of recipes for stewed okra and tomatoes, and picked some okra up at the farmers' market yesterday so i could whip up a batch. one of my recipe calls for canned tomatoes, and another for fresh. today i decided to try the recipe with the canned tomatoes, and as i was opening the can to dump them into the skillet with the okra, i read the ingredients. first ingredient (thank god): tomatoes. second ingredient: high fructose corn syrup. grr...

perhaps it was purely the power of suggestion, but the okra seemed too sweet to me. i mean, it was still tasty in all its slimy loveliness. but still...

so, this experience has led me to a couple of resolutions:

1) try the recipe that calls for fresh tomatoes. it will be interesting to note if, when using non fructose corn syruped tomatoes, the dish is less sweet that what i made today.

2) i am instituting a boycott of del monte stewed tomatoes. or, for that matter, any stewed, diced, or chopped tomato containing anything other than said tomatoes and perhaps a few spices within the auspices of its can. tomatoes, by nature, are tart and sweet at the same time. there is no need for sugar syrup in my stewed tomatoes. soup season is coming up (hooray!) and i go through multiple cans of tomatoes each week. this year, they will not be the tomatoes of del monte.

(mary begemann, i thought of you the entire time i wrote this post...)