{"id":7433,"date":"2016-03-20T01:19:33","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T01:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=7433"},"modified":"2016-03-20T01:19:33","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T01:19:33","slug":"mrs-nics-sauce-again-and-the-san-marzano-tomato-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=7433","title":{"rendered":"Mrs. Nic’s sauce again, and the San Marzano tomato story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"San_Marzano\"<\/a><\/p>\n

pedigree: San Marzano, Italian San Marzano, Italian San Marzano D.O.C.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gorgeous.<\/p>\n

I love tomatoes, in any form, and I think I know what to do with them, in any form,\u00a0but what do I know about\u00a0the competing claims of the many serious (read, ‘high-end’)\u00a0producers\u00a0of tomatoes canned\u00a0for cooking? I’m beginning to think that I may really only be able to say\u00a0what tastes good.<\/p>\n

I used to think\u00a0I knew what was the very best canned tomato, based on my discussions with\u00a0Nic Soccodato<\/a>\u00a0long ago,\u00a0and my experience with the cans he sold out of the back of his barber shop. It was the San Marzano, and only the San Marzano which originated in and grew in his own\u00a0paese, <\/em>the Valle del Sarno. \u00a0<\/em>After\u00a0he retired however I may have inadvertently strayed\u00a0from what he would have considered the genuine San Marzano, and recently I became aware that one of the brands I had been using for some time, and had always found very good, while described as San Marzano tomatoes, did not actually include fruit from Italy. Apostasy, or victory for locavores?<\/p>\n

The problem has been\u00a0further complicated by the fact that products of the same\u00a0producers\u00a0are not found in all markets, and the name, ‘San Marzano’, might not be\u00a0found on any label in a given market, on a given day.<\/p>\n

The can of peeled tomatoes shown in the image above, produced by Agrigenus<\/a>, is what I used last Wednesday, in my last tomato sauce outing; it had all of the credentials. On\u00a0Friday however, when I was\u00a0at\u00a0Eataly for another reason, and remembered I should replace it, the one\u00a0brand I found was Mutti<\/a>.\u00a0 The label asserted, ‘Only\u00a0Italian tomatoes. GMO Free’, but, while\u00a0I looked everywhere, the words ‘San Marzano’ were\u00a0nowhere to be found. I’ve really liked\u00a0this brand in the past, often picking it up when my first choice was not available. Its exclusive presence in the store\u00a0seemed to carry the recommendation of Batali and the\u00a0Bastianich family, so I bought one.<\/p>\n

I now don’t know what my experience\u00a0means to\u00a0the claims for San Marzano tomatoes from the\u00a0Agro Nocerino<\/a><\/em>, but\u00a0I’ll probably continue to seek out the original<\/a>.<\/p>\n