ITALY - SEPTEMBER 7: San Marzano tomatoes, Campania, Italy. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)
It would not seem easy to make the tomato into a prized ingredient, but, after decades of promotion in the food media, the tomatoes of San Marzano in southern Italy have taken on a gastronomic status as having no equal anywhere when it comes to intensity of flavor, natural sweetness and a balance of acid.
Ironically, for a foreign food like the tomato (botanically classified as a fruit) that was only transplanted from the Americas in the 16th century, first to Naples where it grew well in the hot humid climate, it became the iconic symbol of Italian cookery—even though no recipe for a tomato sauce appeared in Italy until 1705 and the first mention of spaghetti with tomato sauce was in 1839 as typical of Naples. Back then, most Italians north of Rome never used tomatoes in their cooking.
The predominantly female workforce of a US canning factory peels and cores ripe tomatoes prior to ... [+]
Canning made all the difference by the end of the 19th century, so that tomatoes could be preserved and shipped anywhere and used when convenient. When the tomato made its way back to America with the Italian immigrants, it became an Italian-America staple.
Agri-Cert, certifies that the tomatoes in a can are actually from the San Marzano region, as with ... [+]
It was only inevitable that the tomatoes from certain regions would outshine those of others, and in the last thirty years San Marzano’s have been judged to be the gold standard. That, inevitably led American food importers and producers to appropriate the words “San Marzano” on their labels in the same way they used “Champagne,” “Chianti,” “caviar” and “Cheddar” for foods not from their native countries.
A recent case filed by a California woman named Andrea Valiente against Simpson Imports, a Pennsylvania tomato seller, maintained that Simpson’s label had used “highly misleading tomato packaging to trick consumers into believing that they are purchasing genuine San Marzano tomatoes, at San Marzano prices.” The company used “San Marzano” on its label years before but switched to calling its contents “San Merican” tomatoes, “a proprietary blend,” on a very similar label.
Whatever happens with the case, American companies use whatever names they like for canned tomatoes, including “San Marzano,” with an estimated 10,000 tons of mis-labeled tomatoes sold around the U.S. This goes against the European Union’s “designation of protected origins” (D.O.P.), overseen by the Consorzio di Tutela del Pomodoro San Marzano” whose mission is to defend the San Marzano tomato from “attempts at commercial counterfeiting. . . checking its authenticity through Quality Boards.” Only the designated San Marzano 2, KIROS variety can receive the D.O.P., which sets the requirements for everything from its shape, length, axis ratio, color and Ph.
The consortium also grants appellations only to the provinces of Salerno, Avellino and Napoli and recognizes only nine processing companies as allowed to put the real thing into cans.
Maurizio Russo runs the winery of Cantina del Vesuvio where his partner Ester runs a cooking school ... [+]
Yet there are some tomato connoisseurs who insist those appellations allow for a far greater area of production than it should, citing the fact that the commune and town of San Marzano sul Sarno is only two square miles in area, and that the real and authentic San Marzano tomatoes only come from there.
Whether or not the consortium bureaucrats agree with that statement, I had one experience in the region south of Mount Vesuvius that made me think the contention that the region around San Marzano sul Sarno does make the very best tomatoes. I had booked a reservation to visit a 30-acre hillside winery, founded in 1949, named Cantina del Vesuvio, where Maurizio Russo and his family produce excellent wines and run a little trattoria serving some of the best , simple, local food in the area.
San Marzano tomatoes go into the spaghetti dishes at the Cabtiba del Vesuvio
Maurizio was in the vineyards digging, planting, trellising, and pruning, and, then showed us to a small patio and dining area where chef Ester Grosso places bottles of Lacryma Christi bianco, rosato, and rosso wines, pitchers of water and a lavish antipasto platter of provolone and salami with bruschetta country bread with a full bowl of deep red sauce made with the local heirloom Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP tomatoes. I dipped the bruschetta into the tomato and reeled back: it was a magnificent burst of flavor. Then came a platter of spaghetti tossed with a deep red tomato sauce of such intensity that, unless you have dined elsewhere in Campania, you will never have tasted anything like it.
(A guided tour of the vineyards with a tasting of five wines and three-course lunch is 45 euros; four courses for 55 euros.)
At Cantina del Vesuvio south of Naples one dines on San Marzano tomatoes al fresco overlooking the ... [+]
Having had thousands of tomato sauce dishes in my lifetime, I experienced a true epiphany at Cantina del Vesuvio of a kind I’ve only had at the dinner table three times before: once, it was my first meal in Paris at the train station where I’d just arrived and was astounded at how delicious the blanquette de veau was; second, eating the seafood of Harry’s Bar in Venice; and third, crouching down with Basque cowboys chowing down pancakes and lamb chops at daybreak next to a hanging lake in Colorado If I never have another moment of such riveting, sensual education as these, I’ll consider myself blessed and want the world to know that the best of the best really does exist, and when it comes to tomatoes, they are coming out of the rich volcanic soil south of Vesuvius.
