Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Tomatering

My In-Laws are from Italy. They lived in a rural area, and grew up during the second world war. They still do many things in old, traditional ways, like making home made pasta, and tomato sauce. Sunday, we went over to make sauce for the coming year. I thought I'd walk through the process for those of you that might be interested.

It starts, of course, with tomatoes. Here we see about three bushels of plum tomatoes spread out on a table in the greenhouse for ripening. My In-Laws have almost an acre of property, and maintain a very large garden, but it's difficult to get enough tomatoes ripe enough at one time to make a large quantity of sauce, so we usually buy several bushels. These are supplemented by whatever ripe tomatoes the home plants do provide. When the expert (my Mother-In-Law) decides that they have reached a suitable level of ripeness, she gives the word, and the relations are summoned. It's time to make sauce.

The first order of business is washing. We put the tomatoes in buckets of water, and swish them around a bit. All we're trying to do is rinse off any loose dirt that might be clinging to them. The rinsers also are taking a quick look at them as they go, trying to pick out any bad ones. As they are rinsed, they are transferred to bushels and put in line to be sliced. The slicers cut off the top of the tomato to eliminate the hard part where the stem joins the fruit. They then slice the tomato lengthwise, and squeeze out some of the water. This is an important step, because if the tomatoes are too watery, the sauce will be, too. The sliced tomatoes are put into a bushel lined with a tablecloth, and every so often they are covered with a layer of salt. The salt serves to soften the skin and help separate it from the meat. When a bushel is full, the expert makes a decision regarding the suitability of the tomatoes to be processed. If they are still too watery, she may fold the tablecloth over top of them and apply weight, to squeeze even more moisture out.

Once the sliced and salted tomatoes are declared ready, they move on to the machina. Let me say a few words about the word machina. The word machina is Italian for machine. They use it for every mechanical thing in their lives. The car is a machina
. The refrigerator is a machina. The lawn mower is a machina. You have to have been paying close attention to the conversation at the In-Laws' place or you can get pretty confused about which machina they are talking about at any given time. The machina we use to make sauce is an ingenious device that pulps the tomatoes, and separates the sauce from the seeds and skin. The one shown here is electric, but less than ten years ago, we were still using a hand cranked machina. Trust me; in some ways progress can be a good thing.

The tomatoes are loaded into the hopper on the top, and they are drawn down through a conical screw. The meat of the tomato is pulped and squeezed out through small holes in the grill covering the screw. The seeds and skin will not fit through the holes, and so are carried out the end. The skin and seeds are poured back into the hopper and run through one more time to ensure all of the available sauce is collected. They are not run through more than that because too much skin and seed in to final product can make it bitter..

A full bucket of sauce is moved over to a table to be transferred to mason jars. We use several sizes of jars to facilitate cooking different sized meals in the future. The largest jars are referred to as Wide Mouth Masons. You didn't need to know that, but I wanted to get that link in there. Once the jars are full, mason lids are placed on top, and the screw caps are screwed down. After the ladies have tightened the lids, we men go around and re-tighten them. Just because we're men, OK?

The full jars are placed into a large pot of water, and boiled for about a half hour. Boiling does two things. First, it kills any bacteria that may be in the sauce. Second, as the mason jars cool, a very strong vacuum seal is created, thereby extending the storage life of the sauce by a considerable amount. We store the sauce at room temperature for periods of well over a year with no problem at all. After it cools, the finished product is boxed, and put into storage for use as desired during the next year.

I'd show you a picture of a delicious plate of pasta with fresh sauce, but (::urp:: excuse me) I already ate it. 

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow .. that WAS interesting .. just when i'd get the hang of the seriousness of the issue at hand you'd go and throw one of those statements that make me chuckle in just for good measure !!
and i learned about seeds and skin .. never knew that before
thanks for the hilarious illustrated tour of pasta sauce :)
pamela

Anonymous said...

My H.S. boyfriend was Italian and on the weekends she would invite me to stay over and cook all night with her, she taught me how to make sauce but here we call it "gravy" ,homemade potato sausage and ravioli.........Other nights she would invite me to stay over then chase me with Holy Water all night.......I never knew if I was going to cook all night or be "Saved" lol Thanks for bring back that memory for me......I think! lol  Ü

Anonymous said...

A great mouth watering entry Paul.. I'm starving now! One question.. I remember my mom doing preserves when I was a kid, and I think she used to sterilize the mason jars before the product was put in and then again after like you described above.. Do the mason jars above get sterilized before the sauce is put in as well or does boiling them once take care of it?

Just curious.

Tasia

Anonymous said...

Yes, the jars and lids are sterilized before we start. We used to boil them, but today we just put them in the dishwasher and set it to "super hot." :)
-Paul

Anonymous said...

Very interesting and your pics are great. I think this is a great family tradition!

Anonymous said...

That sauce probably tastes like heaven made from those tomatoes. I used t have an Italian landlady who made everything she could from scratch...best cook I've ever met.  What a wonderful family adventure......Sandi..http://journals.aol.com/sdoscher458/IJustHadToLaugh

Anonymous said...

Awww...I love pasta.  I've always thought I was eating "homemade", but after reading this...I haven't had anything close to homemade ever.  :::sigh::: wanna send me your MIL for a day? -=)

Anonymous said...

Yes, the jars and lids are sterilized before we start. We used to boil them, but today we just put them in the dishwasher and set it to "super hot." :)
-Paul  Comment from plittle - 29/09/04 8:15 PM


Thanks Paul for answering my question :)
Tasia

Anonymous said...

Cool! That looks like fun, but I would grab the salt and eat while you guys worked. Very good entry Paul!

Lahoma

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul, brings back memories of tomato sauce making in my house when I was a kid; and we weren't Italian, lol, but later, spent many happy hours preparing italian foods w/my Italian mother-in-law...oh how I would absolutely could not wait to dip a piece of italian bread into the sauce that was simmering for hours on the stove!!! MMMMMM.....even better when Dad/Mom put meat in it....oh..think I'm going to have to make some sauce this week!!! <this is the 1st summer, we didnt plant a garden, boohoo> thanx for sharing!