This Is Just To Say: Tomato and White Pepper

I have to say, I’ve felt guilty about not using enough white pepper. I first learned about white pepper from The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual, which talks about using that instead of black pepper because of their French culinary this or that (a partial explanation here). White pepper has a weird, specific flavor that sort of reminds you of a closet but will also be immediately recognizable if you eat Chinese food. I’ve wanted to appreciate it. I’ve forced myself to use it. I’m not sure I always like it.

But then I had this piece-of-shit out-of-season takeout salad tomato the other day — the kind that Jen would never touch and which she usually throws away. I was just goofing around with and decided to eat it — dutifully using white pepper, of course — and, holy moly, the flavors worked really well together. I googled it to see if I could see why and couldn’t find anything, so then I saved this draft and forgot about it. Anyway, it’s really good. If anyone can explain it, let me know.