Later today I'll be making a roasted tomato sauce to have with pasta and to use in risotto, but beyond throwing the tomatoes into the oven with garlic, herbs, olive oil and seasoning, there's nothing laborious about it.
Contrast that with the work of the residents of Campodimele, the subject of Tracey Lawson's A Year in the Village of Eternity (my perfect lunchtime reading just now) for whom the tomato harvest is just one of the calendar's many culinary red letter days. In the chapter on September, Tracey Lawson describes the industry involved in preserving the local tomato glut: la conservazione dei pomodori. One village lady rises in the very early morning and works sixteen hour days bottling tomatoes in the form of both cooked and raw sauce - she will have 350 bottles of sugo in her larder by the time she is finished. Another lady enlists the help of her grandchildren to mash the raw tomatoes in their glass jars:
"'Nonna, dove trovi questa forza?' asks nine-year-old Lorenzo, 'Where do you find your strength?'
"Theodora smiles. It is the smile of a million Italian nonne, for whom no kitchen task is too tiresome or too time-consuming if it benefits her family's palate or health.
'Dove trovo l'amore, trovo la forza!' she replies. 'Where I find love, I find strength!'"
I never thought of roasting tomatoes for sauce - duh, I will have to try that because it sounds delicious and I adore roast vegetables, although it might involve multiple kilos of cherry tomatoes, which are presently my snack of choice every time I pass the kitchen and never enough over for a sauce project LOL!!
Posted by: MelD | 15 March 2012 at 01:57 PM
So easy: just put the tomatoes (whole if small, halved if larger) in a baking tray, add chopped garlic, some sprigs of thyme if you have it, seasoning (maybe also a little sugar) and drizzle with olive oil, then cook at gas 4 for about an hour, or at a higher heat for half that time if you need to get a move on. Press through a sieve or puree with a mouli-legumes.
Posted by: Cornflower | 16 March 2012 at 11:13 AM
There is something delicious about a roasted tomatoe sauce. It was something I had never tried before and we weren't disappointed with the results.
I am currently working my way through Tracy Lawson's book too and I marvel at the amount of work people do in their kitchens. I just can't get the knack of it I am afraid, although I do try hard, I now make a home made stock and soups regularly, which always seem to turn out well and are very tasty.
It is a pleasure, however to read about other people's sucesses in the kitchen, it's a bit like arm chair traveling!!
Posted by: Anji | 16 March 2012 at 07:40 PM