We first need to establish the degree of my childhood aversion to tomatoes. It was fear, not dislike, since I’d never actually tasted one. There wasn’t a single form in which they weren’t scary: I rejected them as ketchup, gazpacho, soup, salsa, sauce, and in their natural form. White pizza only, please, and cream sauce on pasta. My sisters could chase me with a tomato and I would flee in terror—though granted, it was always safer to run if they were chasing me.
I’ve lied to you already. I said it was a childhood aversion, but it lasted until I was thirty.
