Cycle 13 – Item 13

18 (Tue) January 2022

Tomango & Egg Sandwich

1.0

by me

at home

-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-

solo

Tomango (aka Danmato) is a Korean fruit product.  It’s a standard tomato, raised in the traditional manner, subsequently injected with the sweetener stevia.

2 minutes of internet research didn’t reveal much background, like who invented them, who coined the terms – neither of which appears to be trademarked – or where they’re produced.  Introduced to the Korean market in late 2020, they’re still niche.

Until seeing them in the supermarket this evening – strangely, the store only had tomangoes, no regular tomatoes – I had never heard of them.  I bought them without a clue as to how they’d taste.

How they taste: an explosive burst of unseemly sweetness way up front, followed by a fading blandness.  Virtually nil tomato flavor, as if masked or eliminated by the stevia.

Reminded me of Korean tomatoes during the mid-1980s: due to inhospitable climate and/or lack of agricultural expertise, tomatoes back then weren’t so good, very pale in color, very pale in flavor.  They were regarded as a luxury fruit, only served raw, sliced, for dessert or snack, always with a bowl of sugar for dipping each piece before eating it.  They didn’t taste like anything beyond the sugar.  Once, I suggested to my grandmother to try salt, and she got angry.

In the sandwich, the sweetness tomango clashed with the savoriness of the fried egg, as well as the horseradish-mayo dressing.

I hope never to encounter tomangoes again.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)