Every August, I make a dish that requires 90 seconds of work and 12 hours of time, and I have never been able to explain this ratio without watching the listener’s head cock like a puppy hearing a whistle.

Twelve hours? For tomatoes? Yes. Twelve hours for tomatoes. If you don’t get it yet, you soon will.

I first made them for my sister’s wedding in Maine in summer 2000, a homespun affair of the sort where the bride’s brother gets handed a knife and many tomatoes and is told to make himself useful. The groom built an outdoor kitchen just so I could, with the help of some very able friends, cook the meal. (I also baked the wedding cake, perhaps a story for another Sunday.)

The centerpiece of the outdoor kitchen is the wood stove, a brick altar my sister and I have loaded with many things over the decades, but none more lovingly than tray upon tray of tomato halves. During the run-up to the wedding, I stayed up late one night — the kind of real Maine night with black-out darkness and a silence that explains why people believe in things — to check on the trays of shriveling fruit by flashlight, like a dad tending a newborn. I have rarely been happier.

Here is what a dozen 200-degree hours does to a tomato half: It drives off the water and concentrates what’s left, until meat and juice and seed collapse into a moist quarter-inch disk with edges starting to crisp, landing between dried and jam. And the volume reduction! Begin with a pile, end with a jar.

Magic.

What do I put on them before roasting? Olive oil, salt, spices. Over the years, I’ve forged my own Spice Route, flirting with smoked paprika and dallying with cinnamon. It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite as long as you eat at home, a wise person once said, so I come home to cumin, which brings the tomato’s brightness down to earth like nothing else can.

Now. About the oven. Somewhere in your body, a voice that sounds like your mother or grandmother or a home-ec teacher circa 1974 might be shrieking, “DID YOU LEAVE THE OVEN ON?” I was either born without that voice or born to shriek back, “Yes, and the house will be fine!” This oven, after all, is at the thermal equivalent of a warm opinion. At the Maine homestead, brick walls separate fire from home. In D.C., sensitive smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors (plus an induction oven that doesn’t emit what the latter detect) protect us. That doesn’t mean you’ll sleep; it took me many years of making these before I could do anything but creep downstairs at 2 a.m. to confirm the tomatoes had not organized into a coup and to stand in admiration.

When finished, these are sublime on grilled bread with a smear of goat cheese — instant bruschetta. But I saw the truth at the wedding, where I had arrayed such bread and cheese along with smoked trout: Guests ate the tomatoes with their fingers off the tray, no bread, no cheese, no ceremony. I would have been offended, if I hadn’t already done the same.

These tomatoes have been rattling around my head this week because they prove a principle that in turn proves that cliches become cliches because they are true: At the height of summer, get out of the produce’s way. A great, local, ripe August tomato does not need you. It tolerates you. Twelve-Hour Tomatoes involve active intervention only technically. Do 90 seconds count? Everything after is restraint.

Such techniques are how I propose you maximize summer produce, and they’re the type I’ll be getting into in my next Zoom class — set for Sunday, Aug. 9 (register here or at the button below, and spread the word!). We’ll work with cherries and tomatoes and peaches and corn and more, blending some and grating others and broiling still others, but really the lesson involves the art of doing less while making it look (and taste) like … more. Other tomatoes are on the menu, but not these: I won’t ask you to watch me stare at an oven over Zoom. But they are the philosophy’s patron saint.

They’re not the only way to enjoy perfect summer tomatoes. Far from it. But when you overcommit at the market and end up with more than you can reasonably make into the world’s best sandwich(es) before they rot, they’ll help you do right by the season.

You get it now, don’t you?

Here’s the menu we’ll be making — together if you want, or just watch me if you don’t!

I’ll also talk about tons of other ideas for how to handle these beauties, and can’t wait to hear about your own favorite recipes!

Exactly how long these take depends heavily on the size and juiciness of your tomatoes, so for the least fuss, don’t mix varieties or sizes on the same tray.

Makes about 3 cups // Time: A full, lazy day or overnight (8 to 12 hours, almost entirely hands-off) // Storage: Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks, or freeze in heavy-duty freezer bags for up to 6 months. If your refrigerator runs below 38°F, pack them into glass jars, cover with olive oil, and they’ll keep for several months.

Note that this recipe can scale up to handle as many tomatoes (and sheet pans) as you have. And even though I list amounts here, this is the kind of recipe for which you really need to measure only the first time — if then.

Preheat the oven to 200°F. If you’d like, line a large sheet pan with parchment paper.

Place the tomatoes cut side up on the sheet pan. Season the cut sides with salt and pepper to taste, drizzle with the olive oil, and sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon of the ground cumin over each tomato half.

Bake for 8 to 12 hours, until the tomatoes have collapsed and shriveled to about 1/4 inch thick but are still moist inside. (Yes, this can mean overnight. Yes, the oven will be fine. Set a timer if it soothes you.)

Let cool completely, then transfer to an airtight container — or, better, pack tightly into jars, pressing gently so the heady mix of olive oil, juice, and cumin rises to the top — and refrigerate.

NOTE: To toast the cumin, warm the seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes, shaking the pan so they don’t burn. Transfer to a heatproof bowl and let cool slightly, then grind to a coarse powder in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle.

Substitutions & variations

How to use them

These are gift links to the recipes at the Post. Note that they require you to register but not subscribe. Gift links are free to access for 2 weeks, so if you want to come back to any of these recipes but don’t subscribe or want to subscribe, I suggest you find a way to save them!

Roasted Tomato Pie With Cheddar-Parmesan Crust

Roasted Tomato and Chickpea Curry

Roasted Cherry Tomato Confit