By: Faisal Tayeh
Curiosity prompted me to write about the crushing crisis of vegetable and fruit prices that we are witnessing these blessed days, which will not soon herald the restoration of lost confidence between the citizen and the "tomato box," especially since we must raise the slogan of boycotting tomatoes and using "tomato sauce cans" and striving to claim the people's right to tomatoes, the daily sustenance of the citizen after the loaf of bread.
Honestly, the state of the tomato and its sudden jumps are like the state of politics and its sudden conflicts, and the least that can be said is that we used to see the tomato red and ripe, a pesticide-free fruit for the humble, but now we only see in our markets the "hanging" tomato which has no taste or smell, leading us to the sour alternative sauce, which rightfully neither fats nor satisfies hunger.
In our world today, the tomato is no longer just a vegetable, no, gentlemen, the tomato has become a luxury item almost competing with baklava and imported tropical fruits in its price, especially in times of wars and disturbances, as they try to convince us that its prices are rising for strategic reasons not understood by the general public.
Some traders deceive us by saying that tomatoes come via oil tankers, descend upon us from private planes, or are imported via ships—as if we never grew them in the Jordan Valley, in the deserts of the kingdom, or in every corner of our homes, and that suddenly they acquired a royal personality and intellectual property rights demanding a dinar and twenty, and may reach to a dinar and a half per kilogram.
In the vegetable and fruit markets, our only vendors named the lady "tomato" as "the crazy one," an apt name as she is "crazy and sixty times crazy" because her prices have insanely risen during this period, perhaps she is crazy "and seeing herself" because she belongs to the "eggplant" tribe which includes Dr. "Zucchini", Professor "Okra", and Madam "Molokhia".
The fear is that the tomato can shift from market stalls to the yellow palaces, but I revert to saying if the tomato is absent, play, Oh sauce, and the sauce will not be able to fill the void of the tomato especially in a people addicted to buying tomatoes, add to that a salad dish without tomato slices, like prayer without ablution, and we will remain at the mercy of the crazy tomato.
And bless you, Oh tomato...
And God help us
