ACT English Practice Test 89: The Fruit of the Vine

bystanders. that of the American kitchen, tomatoes are₁ grocery stores, roadside stands, and even on₂ tables in front of peoples' homes. plenty in₄ While all are delicious, recipes for using fresh₅ tomatoes, while₆ easily accomplished₇ Whomever chooses₈ aside. Waiting until it is₉ cool enough to handle. as the tomato may still be very hot.₁₀ recipe, green₁₁ a bright red color, it₁₂ one₁₄

The Fruit of the Vine

It is difficult to imagine a human diet without tomatoes in some form, whether a fresh tomato right off the vine or in a spaghetti sauce over pasta. even when out of season and of inferior quality.

During the growing season, tomatoes of every variety abound in With tomatoes so readily available during the growing season, it's easy to run out of things to do with them. 18 Luckily, there are ways to use and enjoy this surplus of fresh tomatoes. range from a basic tomato salad (sliced tomatoes with oil and vinegar) to complicated sauces requiring hours to simmer and stew. Many cooks prefer to peel and deseed the using them in a cooking recipe. Peeling can be by first scoring one end of the tomato with a sharp knife, making a small crosshatch, and then dropping the fruit into boiling water for approximately 30 seconds. this method should be careful not to splash the hot water when placing the tomato into the pot. After the time is up, the cook can use tongs to remove the tomato from the boiling water and set it The skin can then be quickly removed with a sharp kitchen knife, and the tomato's seeds can be collected in a strainer. This is an important step,

Even green tomatoes harvested before the first frost can be ripened indoors or used in a green tomato tomatoes placed on a kitchen shelf will ripen nicely in just a short amount of time. Once a tomato is can be used for cooking or stored for later use. A fresh tomato won't last long, even in the refrigerator, so it's best to decide early on which tomatoes should become salsa or sauce and which should be served raw in a salad or sandwich. 28

There is truly only one way to eat a fresh tomato and experience its ultimate taste. Go into a garden, pluck a tomato off the vine, brush off any dirt, and then eat it like an apple. The Italians may have rejected the tomato when it was first introduced to their diets, believing it to be poisonous, but it certainly didn't take long to incorporate this delicious fruit into nearly every homemade dish. Biting into a freshly picked red tomato irrefutably explains why.

English practice 27