Cold Mexican Tomato Soup: Gazpacho!

One of my favorite ways to eat homegrown Cincinnati tomatoes (which I love; I refer you to a previous blog to see just how much I love ’em) is in gazpacho, a cold soup full of garden vegetables. I’ve liked it since I was a kid, when nobody around here really knew what gazpacho was.

It’s well-known and, I guess, kind of a hip food these days; people make white gazpacho and watermelon gazpacho and all sorts of variations. But, like bagels, my family members were “early adopters,” as they say. And it’s all because our neighbor was a jazz musician. That might not make much sense, but one of his band members was a tall Jewish fellow who brought bagels from the mysterious East (Marx bagels) to the west side regularly, where they were an immediate hit. Another fellow musician was Jose Madrigal, a great guitar player and an almost equally great cook, especially of Mexican specialties.

I learned to make Jose’s recipes for tortillas and chicken mole and gazpacho early on; we made buckets of gazpacho from my grandfather’s Rabbit Hash-grown tomatoes when I was growing up. I continued to make it, to great applause, with my own homegrown tomatoes from the wilds of Westwood and Price Hill. I’ve already made some this year, depending on the fellow with the Home Grown Tomatoes sign on Guerley Road, since I didn’t get many tomatoes in my own garden before the squirrels made off with them, and they’ve been late coming in to the farm.

But the week before last there were plenty of tomatoes, plus there were cucumbers and I do have a crop of peppers from my garden, so it was time to start the gazpacho. My recipe—well, no, it’s Jose Madrigal’s recipe—follows.

Jose’s Gazpacho
12 ripe homegrown tomatoes, peeled and diced
2 large cucumbers, peeled and diced
4 tsps. salt
3 medium onions, diced
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 or 2 green peppers, seeded and chopped
½ cup salad oil
½ cup vinegar
½ teaspoon pepper
2 or 3 shakes hot sauce
parsley

Blend all ingredients together in a food processor (you may need to do it in batches). Makes 3 quarts. Serve cold garnished with chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, green onions, and croutons.