A recipe for baby's first gazpacho

There are moments where how far my understanding of what good food is has shifted, and also how much of a snob I am, coalesce, and a great one was when I read a recipe my father wrote that calls for Clamato juice as the base of a gazpacho. My first reaction was an extremely “Of course! He loved Clamato juice, and also things that are easy.” My second was, “well obviously I’m going to use actual tomatoes for this, because it’s tomato season.” And my third was to start looking into Clamato juice, which, invented in Mexico in the ‘60s, actually has a fascinating history, and is particularly popular in Canada.

According to the Wall Street Journal, as it was for childhood me, the “clam” part of Clamato is a turn-off for some—they discuss Mott’s having success in marketing it to Latinos, but otherwise facing issues in the U.S. with what they called the “clam-barrier.” In addition:

One thing that Mott’s is happy to keep vague is whether Clamato really can boost libido. It's something “we neither confirm nor deny,” Mr. Nahm says.

Okay! In any case, I still hated the idea of Clamato juice when I decided to, in the 90 degree heat we’ve been experiencing this week, make gazpacho, which I’ve never actually made before. I was inspired by my friend Tommy who suggested that this could be how we use some leftover tomatoes a few weekends ago—I guess I usually don’t have leftover tomatoes, so the idea has never occurred to me.

In case you, like me, had never given it much thought, gazpacho is insanely easy, as it requires only a blender and no warming of anything. I used actual tomatoes, though there are actually recipes out there—yes, one is from Big Clamato itself—that recommend store bought juice. What was appealing to me about this “recipe,” heavy on the quotes, was that it called for peppers, and we had a bunch of mystery ones from our garden I needed to find a use for. (I’m pretty sure they’re these Italian ones, but see for yourself below.) After roughly dicing the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and onion, I, double checking a few other recipes that were more detailed than the above, combined them in our food processor, because we don’t have a blender and I thought the Ninjas we do have would be too annoyingly small. (I was right; this filled to the brim our fairly large Cuisinart.)

Next, I poured in a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar and added the salt. Lastly, I, keeping the processor going, slowly poured in what seemed to amount to about half a cup of olive oil—definitely more than I was told to—watching as the mixture emulsified. Once it had thickened, I tasted it, and it seemed good! What else can we ask for.

I served it with a lot of basil and parsley on top, as well as some pita chips, plus a side of green beans. It is, in my opinion, a little weird to be eating what is basically a glorified beverage, but I guess that’s soup on a very hot day for you.

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