MY SAUCE DOES NOT LACK TOMATOES EVEN IN SCARCITY

I heard tomatoes are currently  scarce and expensive? Is that so? - I didn't even know until  someone mentioned it in passing- I've not needed to buy tomatoes for weeks now but still been enjoying rich tomato sauce - the goodness of snake (paste) tomatoes   (Trichosanthes cucumerina)  which I planted few months ago. 

Some years ago, it was during the period of serious tomato scarcity. I was at a prayer meeting with my grown-up niece.

The person leading the prayers was a very sophisticated lady in her 70s then. One of the prayer points she raised for people to pray and which she  prayed very loudly, fervently was, "Oh God, in this period of tomato scarcity, my sauce will not lack tomatoes o.!....

After the prayer meeting my niece laughed and laughed as she recalled the prayer point and  the sophisticated  Mama's  prayer- didn't know such matter could be brought to the church pulpit.

Well, virtually every year in Nigeria in recent times especially during the rainy season, the price of  the rounded tomatoes skyrocket- for many people, buying so much tomatoes as they normally do at such high prices is outrageous, very annoying and even not worth it and that is if you get to buy.

So people buy less and make do with lesser quantities of tomatoes in their sauces for stews, soups, jollof rice and other delicacies enriched with tomatoes.

Many also turn to packaged tomato pastes -sachets,tins  and bottled which are not as fresh and healthy but can add colour to their sauces. But you see this snake (paste) tomatoes is the rich goodness of tomatoes at its peak.

The beautiful part is that it matures and ripen even during rainy season in open gardens and fields unlike rounded tomatoes which would need expensive greenhouses at such period to grow, mature and ripen. 

Now I am enjoying the paste tomatoes I planted in January ending/February.  Prayer answered - Oh God, I thank you o - my sauce does not lack tomatoes!

It's a whole lot of work removing the relatively big seeds from the paste but so well worth it - there are many good things in life but they usually require some sacrifice.

This tomato sauce  with just a little addition of pepper and natural spice even tastes like ketchup -  this sauce is a good friend to fried yam and cocoyam.

No need to worry about  chemicals used in growing tomatoes and preservatives used in preserving the packaged ones.

So if you can, make una farm for farm-fresh foods, but  our people go still  dey do shakara- lifestyle terminal diseases no dey kuku respect  even big people.

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