Many years ago, I bought a house in the Garfagnana, where we still go every summer. The first time we1 there, we heard the chug chug-chug of a motorbike2 its way down the hill toward us. It was3 called Mario, coming to4 us a box containing some tomatoes and a bottle of wine. It was a very nice5 for him to make. But when we looked at the tomatoes, we were6 because they were so misshapen: not at all like the nice, round, 7 things you get in a supermarket. And the wine was cloudy, in a funny old bottle with no label(标签) on it These can't be any8 , we thought. But we were9 his kindness, so we10 them.
What we discovered is that it's11 to judge what you eat only by its12 . Those tomatoes had13 that reminded me of the ones my uncle used to grow when I was a child. Nowadays supermarket tomatoes14 perfect but taste of water. Nobody's going to have a15 memory of those. It's a surprise they haven't managed to grow square ones so that they can16 them easily. Mario's wine may have been cloudy and come out of an old bottle, but it was17 .
It's good to eat things at the correct time, when they're18 , and as close as possible to where they were19 . What Mario had20 us was the taste of the Garfagnana.
