At first you think, no contest. Surely not even tomato’s botanical status as a fruit could disqualify it from the title of Greatest Summer Vegetable. A tomato is summer: gorged with sun, ridiculously voluptuous, drunk on stillness and time.

Its heft in the hand is a promise. It has grown fat from a life of leisure; maybe you could, too. Its skin catches the light like a balloon’s. Cut it open, and there’s a sigh. Inside are shadowy crevices, hoards of juice. You half eat, half drink it.

But — it feels like sacrilege to confess — I like tomatoes best in winter, whole San Marzanos from Italy in a can, their stores of sunshine breaking down into warm ragù. They bring a memory of brightness to the long dark.

Corn I eat only in summer. I have to wait for it, which makes me want it more. It is a communal waiting, family and friends scanning the farmers’ market and reporting back, “Not yet.” Then the first ears appear, plucked golden from the pot, followed by contemplative crunching and a slight shaking of heads. Not yet.