Everyday differences in Puglia: Tomato Bottling

We have been out for the olive harvest and the grape harvest but not, that I recall, for the tomato harvest. That is because we rarely come out during school holidays.

I had read about the frenzy of passata making in Annie Hawes' Ligurian trilogy and it should not surprise me that it is an Italy-wide phenomenon. The glut of tomatoes at this time of year and their prevalence as a basic ingredient in Italian cooking make this inevitable.

The evidence of all this activity is there in the supermarkets:


Big pans for boiling the jars in the Fasano hypermarket


A tomato press in a local furniture store


Tomato buckets and burners for the pots in a Locorotondo supermarket

And what should I find on YouTube but our neighbours Mino Maggi, with sister Zia and wife Carole, demonstrating the bottling and boiling of tomatoes.




How different from rain-soaked England!