By Shirley O. Corriher
Tribune Media Services

Even if you are not a gardener, you may have neighbors or relatives who bestow generous amounts of fresh vegetables upon you. If you're lucky, you may have real, honest-to-goodness tomatoes -- deep red, ripe and sweet. They do not even resemble the hard, pale, tasteless "tomatoes" in the grocery store.

If you are the gardener, pick the variety very carefully. Read the descriptions in the seed catalogue and select a variety that has the characteristics that you want.

Technically, a tomato is a fruit (the seed bearing ovary of the plant). It is all-important for the plant to take care of its seeds. As tomatoes grow, they are a protective green to hide among the leaves. When the seeds are fully developed and ready to sow, the tomato has a problem: If all of its seeds fall clumped together right under the plant, there will be only a given amount of nutrients for them. Only a limited number of the seeds will be able to get food and sunlight to prosper.

So the tomato seeks the help of animals (humans included) to spread its seeds. If the tomato becomes desirable both in appearance and taste, animals will grab it, carry it away, eat it, and take the seeds to other places. The tomato goes from a hidden green to a luscious, standout red or yellow.

Major taste changes take place in the tomatoes as they ripen. They become less acidic and much sweeter. Big starch molecules break down into sugars to make them more desirable. Fried green tomatoes are a treasured Southern dish, but truly ripe tomatoes are wonderful. Vegetables like zucchini may be at their best when picked small. But, with tomatoes, if you can, leave them on the vine as long as possible.

There are also changes in glutamate, a compound that stimulates your umami taste receptors. In a ripening tomato, glutamate goes from 10 milligrams per 100 milliliters of juice to 100 milligrams per 100 milliliters of juice. This is a dramatic change that reflects the change from a cardboard tasting unripe tomato to the absolutely delicious flavors in a truly ripe tomato.

Now that we have this treasure -- ripe, truly delicious tomatoes -- how do we care for and serve them? First, do not refrigerate. A major flavor compound in tomatoes, (Z)-3-hexenal, is destroyed by chilling.

Second, pay attention to the complex ways the taste of tomatoes can be influenced by seasoning them with salt or sugar.

Salt has indirect influences on flavor. Pastry chefs have always said, "Add a pinch of salt to desserts to bring out the sweetness." Dr. Gary Beauchamp and researchers at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia showed us the interplay between salt and sweetness. He had a diagram representing the sweetness and bitterness in a dish. Then, he added a little salt and showed us a new diagram. The sweetness stayed about the same, but the bitterness dropped to almost nothing!

To experience salt's impact, do a tonic water tasting. Tonic water has bitter quinine and sugar water to make the bitterness palatable. Pour two samples of the tonic water. Taste one plain; to the second sample, add a pinch of salt. Amazingly, bitterness is dramatically reduced and the sample is almost like sugar water!

When you think about this, you have experienced it many times. You may have seen people put salt on grapefruit.

Sugar, too, has complex indirect influences on flavor. Researchers at the University of Nottingham have done interesting experiments to analyze the gases present in the nasal cavity. They gave test subjects gum with mint and sugar and asked them to chew until the flavor was gone. When subjects reported the flavor gone, the researchers could see that mint was still present in their nasal cavities. The subjects were then given a sugar cube. They thought that it was mint! The sugar brought the mint flavor back.

A friend from the UK said that, as children, when their gum ran out of flavor, they rolled it in the family sugar dish and it was like new. I'm so glad that my children did not know about this! As little as 1/4 teaspoon of sugar in a dish can make an amazing taste difference.

Now, I do understand that the world is opposed to salt and sugar, but we are talking about small amounts. You do not need to taste the salt or the sugar itself, but you can use just enough to take advantage of their magic in bringing out the flavors in the dish.

The amount of salt and sugar in the recipe for Ripe Tomatoes and Mozzarella is small, 1/4 teaspoon each, but flavor-wise, this small amount can make a big difference.

Ripe cherry or grape tomatoes or chopped tomatoes can be a crowning glory for many dishes. I love to brown garlic slices lightly in olive oil and toss with spaghetti. This can be a company dish when topped with ripe, coarsely chopped tomatoes and cut slivers of fresh basil leaves.