tomatoes Archives - attheitaliantable.com

August 24, 2019 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Late summer’s goodness – tomatoes!

Late summer is in full swing, which in today’s world means the kids are already back in school just when the tomatoes are beautiful, plump, dark red and full of flavor, perfect for an al fresco lunch. There is nothing like a home-grown tomato, red and ripe, sliced and sprinkled with salt and olive oil, a little basil and some good bread to sop up the juices. Maybe add a ball of mozzarella or burrata. Tomatoes are easy to grow, if you can protect them from marauding rodents, but if you don’t grow your own, great tomatoes are just down the road at your local farmers market.

I wonder how many kids would be happy to see a ripe tomato in their lunch box, ready for snacking?!

The tomato is a member of the nightshade family, which also includes peppers, eggplants and potatoes, as well as tobacco, belladonna and mandrake. Originating in Central and South America, where it is a perennial, the Spanish are credited with distributing it around the world: to Asia through the Philippines and to Europe through Spain and Spanish colonies in southern Italy. The tomato is so closely linked with Italian cuisine that many people are surprised to learn that it has only been used in Naples and the Italian south since the mid-17^th Century, and in central and northern Italy since the late 18^th or early 19^th Century. In Campania, where tomatoes proliferate, the tomato was first mentioned in a cookbook of Spanish-influenced recipes printed in Naples in 1692.

In the US we have tried and true varieties, but heirloom tomatoes have made a big comeback, so called because they were old varieties, grown by past generations, that fell out of favor when everyone left their gardens and started shopping at the supermarkets. In Italy the old varieties were never lost and, even though more people shop at a supermarket than tend a garden, the traditional varieties, all wrinkled and nubbley and thick-skinned, have continued their strong presence in both garden and kitchen. Some of the best and sweetest tomatoes are grown in Campania and Sicily on the volcanic soils of Vesuvius and Etna.

On our recent trip to Tuscany for the July Palio, we were treated to a simple pasta course of spaghetti with a fresh tomato sauce that blew our socks off! Fresh cherry tomatoes were simmered with onion, garlic and olive oil, until they broke down into a sweet, oily goodness, then tossed with spaghetti and fresh basil. We’ve recreated the sauce since coming back and it is a delicious addition to summer recipes.

There are so many tomatoes available on the market now, whether you’re shopping at the farmers market, growing your own or swinging by the grocery store. Some tomatoes are sweet, like little date tomatoes, and some have more pulp and less juice, like the Roma. Some tomatoes get even sweeter when they’re heated and those are the ones you want for this sauce! To determine which are best, get a variety of cherry and grape tomatoes, cut one of each in half and pop them on a baking sheet into a hot oven. Once they’re heated through, take them out and taste each one. You’ll want to use the ones that turn the sweetest in the heat!

Have fun and buon appetito!

August 26, 2015 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Making Tomato Sauce in Campania

It’s late August and that means my friends Sabato and Concetta are busy canning their amazing tomatoes, Il Miracolo di San Gennaro, down in the valley between Mt Vesuvius and the Lattari Mountains, just east of Naples. I can’t help but think of them and the fun times I’ve had helping to can tomatoes in their backyard, which in August is turned into a production facility.

In southern Italy in the summer, everything is done outdoors. And a tomato canning operation is no exception! Sabato’s equipment has gotten bigger and better over the years and the boiler for sterilizing the jars has been moved to the cantina downstairs. But the main operation of picking through the tomatoes, boiling them and milling them into rivers of sauce and then putting it in jars is still done outside.

Friends and family get together to help, which is great because it’s a 6 a.m. to midnight operation.Of course, we’re in Italy so there are healthy stops for lunch and a rest around 1 pm and then again around 7:30. Coffee is brought from the bar next door, crates of tomatoes are ever arriving from the fields.

It’s a joyous time and I wish I was there with them helping this year!

August 21, 2015 by Gina Stipo 3 Comments

Summer Tomatoes

There is nothing better than a ripe, deep red summer tomato, fresh from your garden or the local farmers market. They were late to market here in Louisville KY, where I moved from Italy last year, but when they finally arrived they were a joy.

As good as they are, however, they can’t match the sweetness of the little tomatoes grown in the volcanic soil of Sicily and Napoli. Anyone who has visited me for a cooking class in Italy has tasted them; small grape tomatoes bursting with juicy sweetness, when they’re heated through for a simple fresh tomato basil sauce or warmed in the oven to top goat cheese-stuffed zucchini blossoms, they are virtually vegetable candy!

Much is made of San Marzano tomatoes from the Campania region and for good reason. Grown in the volcanic soil on the slopes and in the valley of Mt Vesuvius, one of Italy’s many active volcanoes, they are meaty and sweet with a particular flavor not found in any other tomato. Several brands are found on the market but it’s best to get the ones from Italy that have a DOP stamp, designating them as officially inspected by the consortium of San Marzano DOP and a guarantee of origin and quality. Gustiamo out of NY has some great product they bring from Italy.

My grandmother had San Marzano seeds from her hometown in Campania and grew the tomatoes in her garden in the heart of Brooklyn. I remember the canned filets of tomato she put on her pizza and have been trying to recreate that taste for years. These tomatoes make a wonderful pizza sauce, the less they’re cooked the better.

There are a number of different kinds of tomatoes in Italy. None of them are called “heirloom” because growing them isn’t a lost tradition, it’s a continual way of life that extends back centuries.

There are a host of American Italian tomato sauce recipes that call for sugar, which is an ingredient much less widely used in Italy and never ever found in a tomato sauce. The origins of sugar in Italian “gravy” (I shudder to use the word) come from the acidic canned tomatoes that the Italian immigrants found when they arrived in the 1900’s. Sugar in the form of sucrose was needed to replace the natural fructose that the US tomatoes lacked. That’s not necessary in today’s market when you can get delicious tomatoes right from Italy in any number of good brands.

Here are a couple of my favorite recipes using luscious summer tomatoes. They’re simple and with just a few ingredients. In fact, they’re identical, one is heated and used as a sauce for pasta and the other is served fresh in a salad, with a good loaf of bread to sop up the juices.

Happy tomato season and Buon Appetito!

Sugo di Pomodoro e Basilico Fresco (fresh tomato and basil)
2 cups fresh roma or grape tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
Sea salt
Olive oil
2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped or torn
Gently sauté the garlic in olive oil until soft, add chopped tomatoes and sauté a few minutes, adding salt to taste. Add the chopped basil and toss with cooked pasta, topping with Parmigiano before serving.

Fresh Tomato Salad
3 large ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks
2 garlic cloves, whole
Sea salt
Extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped or torn

Toss all ingredients together and allow to sit for at least 30 minutes. Fresh ground black pepper can be added, although a good quality Tuscan olive oil should be peppery enough. Serve with great bread for sopping up the juices.

August 24, 2011 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Summer’s Ripe Tomatoes, Part I

It’s the full swing of summer here in Tuscany and it’s hot hot hot; which means the tomatoes are beautiful, plump, dark red and full of flavor. While many Tuscans prefer their tomatoes green and crunchy, I like mine red and ripe, sliced and sprinkled with salt and olive oil, a little basil with some good bread to sop up the juices.

The tomato is a member of the nightshade family, which also includes peppers, eggplants and potatoes, as well as tobacco, belladonna and mandrake. Interesting mix of alkaloids, some of which are deadly!

Originating in Central and South America, where it is a perennial, the Spanish are credited with distributing it around the world, to Asia through the Philippines and to Europe through Spain as well as southern Italy. The tomato is so closely linked with “Italian food” that most people are surprised to hear that it has only been used in Naples and the south since the late-17^th Century and in Rome, Tuscany and northern Italy since the late 18^th or early 19^th Century; and the reason for its introduction at all was Spain.

: Cuore di Bue (bulls’ heart tomatoes)

Southern Italy was a part of the Spanish Empire for almost 300 years, having won it in a war, and from the early 1500’s until the early 1800’s the Bourbon kings of Spain ruled Naples and Sicily. Having discovered the new world and the tomato with it, the Spanish were the natural carriers of this foreign vegetable to Europe. It took foothold in southern Italy, where it grew well in the hot summer sun and the rest, as they say, is history. Sabatino Abagnale, a tomato producer in Campania, tells me that the tomato was first mentioned in a cookbook of Spanish-influenced recipes printed in Naples in 1692 and since that time has heavily influenced the cuisine of that region to this day.

In the US, the heirloom tomatoes are o called because past generations grew these old varieties that then fell out of favor when everyone left their gardens and started shopping at the supermarkets. But in Italy the old varieties were never lost and, even though more people shop at a supermarket than tend a garden, the traditional varieties, all wrinkled and nubbled and thick-skinned, have continued their strong presence in both garden and kitchen.

There is one peculiar kind of tomato that is picked at the end of the summer and hung in bunches and left for use during the winter. They don’t dry out or get wrinkly because the skin is so tough and solid, and when you use them months later they are just as fresh as the day they were picked, only more velvety instead of juicy. They fascinate me!

Panzanella

One of my favorite Tuscan summertime dishes is panzanella, Tuscan bread salad. As anyone who’s ever visited Tuscany knows, the bread here is salt less and can be quite a disappointment at first. It’s a wonderful foil to their salty salami and stews but takes a little getting used to. The Tuscans are frugal people and the dish is born of la cucina povera, or the poor kitchen. Almost 500 years ago the governor of Tuscany put a heavy tax on salt and being both poor as well as austere, they started leaving salt out of the bread. Because of this the bread doesn’t absorb moisture from the air and, kept outside of plastic, won’t mold, meaning it can be kept for a good long time and used when needed. The Tuscans have developed an entire cuisine to make use of the old bread, of which panzanella is my hands down favorite! It’s simple: rehydrate old bread in a little salted water, squeeze it dry and crumble it into a bowl. Add what is fresh out of the garden: beautiful ripe tomatoes, a little salad onion, maybe a cucumber, definitely some torn basil and a generous slug of good extra virgin olive oil. Toss it well and enjoy it with a crisp glass of Vernaccia di San Gimignano!

Next time: Summer Tomatoes Part Two: canning San Marzano’s