Think On It

Putting it by … at Barzotti

August 20th, 2007

This week past Olga and Ivano started to can tomatoes. I thought you might like to see how they do it, since it’s done here as it was done in 1900 or earlier, and it is vital to their well-being. For Ivano a meal without tomatoes is only a snack. I’ve cooked French cuisine for him to have him say, “It was very good, but it would be better with tomatoes.”

The gather the tomatoes for a while and keep them in their “fondo” or ground floor do-everything room. The tomatoes get sweeter and sweeter for the wait.

After a dip into boiling water, they’re skinned and put whole into sterile bottles with salt.

The big oil barrel is rolled out and placed on a trivet. The bottles are laid inside, it’s filled with cold water and Ivano builds a fire under it.

Here’s what it looks like when it’s full. My legs were scorching from the fire burning hotter and hotter.

After about an hour and a half, they’re done and they are taken out and Olga tests to be sure they’re sealed They go onto the shelves in the fondo and wait for winter. It takes several days to put by enough tomatoes to make Ivano happy.

As I walked back home I saw that instead of cluttering the garage with them, they’ve used a place under the scaffolding to cure the onions this year. That can’t be all of them. Even tomato lovers use more onions than that.

Entry Filed under: Food, Italy, Preserving, kitchen stuff