How to Tell if a Tomato is Perfectly Ripe

"Xitomatl" is the Aztec name for tomatoes that translates wonderfully to "plump thing with a navel." And summer is the time for some serious navel gazing.

SO YOU FIND YOURSELF standing, motionless, in the produce department of your local grocery store or at the farmstand befuddled by the mounds of Big Boys, Early Girl Mortgage Lifters, bunches of Romas with their tangles of green vines. And you wonder, “How the hell do I know which is a perfectly ripe tomato?”

You’ve come to the right guy because I have a …