The Story
Tomato day. This week it’s something so exciting and close to my heart that it was hard knowing where to start. In fact, it’s so deeply enmeshed with who I am that I juggled joy and a hard lump in my throat as I tried to put it into words. After almost two decades, we’re bringing back tomato day!
Throughout a childhood of being asked whether we made tomato sauce, our little band of cousins has become pretty good at joking summaries of days spent sitting around on milk crates with paring knives, Nonna ordering everyone about in her little knotted handkerchief hat. It’s hilarious and we’re proud of it, but it’s also easier than trying to express what it actually means to us. Particularly now that we’ve all grown up and set off on our own lives.
For me at least, those were times of such intense happiness and belonging that rarely a day goes by without me wishing I could live even one of those moments again. There was my Bisnonna (‘Big Nonna’) in charge of the whole thing with my Nonna second-in-command, my Ma and her brother and sister, all of us cousins, and occasionally a slightly baffled outsider. There was scheming with a carefully chosen farmer, entrusted with the task of growing our family tomatoes, and the days leading up to the big event where Nonna would keep the tomatoes spread across a bed sheet on her garage floor to finish ripening. 5am starts, endless coffee and regimented break times, freshly picked basil taken straight from the garden to drop into each bottle, that perfect smell of salted tomatoes alongside engine grease and firewood. And of course enough dark brown beer bottles, recollected as they were used over the previous year, to fill and distribute to the whole family for another twelve months. Every time any of us plucked one of those bottles out of its cool, dark hiding spot to cook with, we were immediately taken back to that day in Nonna’s garage.
Danica and I are the oldest of the cousins, and we’re over here by ourselves on the other side of the country. In the time that I’ve been here, more than a third of my life now, that first generation who passed on the food traditions that we celebrate today has all but disappeared. The overseers of the sauce, the bosses of the pasta, the masters of the spit roast, the holders of all biscuit and pastry secrets. Almost all of them have now passed away, or forgotten us. So I do write this with a profound sense of loss. Tomato day, particularly this time around, is not just about the tomatoes: it’s about acknowledging the end of something intangibly momentous, one of the deepest parts of my identity losing the people that tied it to the physical world. It turns out that reviving an old tradition adds a painful finality to what came before.
However, the immutable beauty of food traditions is that they’re ultimately things of love. For all of the sadness and loss, there will always be greater amounts of happiness and hope. The old generation may be missing, but there’s a new one this time around. In fact, hot off the press, little Al actually has a little brother on the way. I haven’t been this happy on tomato day since I graduated from tomato-washing to bottle-capping. Though the blog may need rebranding.
The Sauce
It goes without saying that it all begins and ends with the tomato. I was never privy to the research, planning, and negotiation that went into the seemingly simple act of purchasing a trailer-load of tomatoes, so I’ve blindly inherited only the panic and obsession, which I now gift onwards to my grocer. After searching high and low, I ended up back at one of my first and favourite grocers from when I first moved over east, Trugolds. I remember good old Fred used to stand out the front yelling about Fuji apples and offering a slice or two with a flattering comment about how good I was looking that weekend. I used to eat a lot of Fuji apples.
Offering a niche product like this takes a lot of understanding and care from the grocer. Not to mention a willingness to face hordes of picky Italians descending on you and your tomatoes each summer. Long story short, history repeated itself, and I was an unintentional nuisance to deal with, but Tony and the crew nonetheless went out of their way to make our tomato day happen. And look at these fine things. Vine-ripened, thin-skinned Roma goodness. Specially sourced from Shepparton in Victoria, and ready for only one month a year.
Quality control. 
Now, first things first: prime your coffee machine, because you’ll need to be up before the sun. First step is to clean the tomatoes, and then cut off and discard the tops, any bad bits, and the watery cores. This will take longer than expected, and you’ll come to realise that you make passata for the heart more than the stomach.
Line some large tubs with cheesecloths (or for a more traditional approach like us, bed sheets) and then load up the tomatoes with a sprinkling of salt between layers. For us, that’s about 1tbsp per kilogram. Leave them for 2-3 hours, allowing the salt to draw out as much moisture as possible, then bundle up the sheets and firmly wring out any remaining water.
Next, crack out the tomato machine and pass the skins through 5-6 times. Make sure that you never let the machine run dry, and chuck the skins to the chooks.
Full disclosure, our chooks retired a few decades ago.
There are many ways to sterilise your bottles, but we work in small batches, handwashing them with hot soapy water then drying them in the oven for 15-20 minutes before bottling. A few minutes in boiled kettle water for the caps.
Drop a large leaf of basil into the bottom of each bottle, then fill and cap leaving some space in the neck for the sauce to expand as it heats. Use hessian sacks or thick towels to layer them into a large stock pot/s (the sacks will prevent them knocking together and shattering) set over a 3-4 ring burner, submerge with cold water, and bring slowly to a gentle boil. We used to cook them in 44 gallon drums over a mound of wood, but memories of my uncle running out the front every half an hour to check whether any smoke was visible from the road suggest that it’s less legally ambiguous to use gas during Australian bushfire season.
They’ll need to be in there for 4-6 hours, so keep an eye on the boil and make sure it doesn’t get too excited. Turn off the heat and allow the pots to cool overnight before lifting the bottles out. Store this red gold away in a cool, dark location, bask in the glory of what you’ve achieved, and treat yourself to an early dinner with any leftover tomatoes.
Yours always in sauce and pasta,
– Al & Al.
Equipment
- Large tubs, solid
- Large tubs, perforated
- Large cheesecloths (alternatively, cotton bed sheets)
- Bottle washing and sterilising equipment (alternatively, dishwasher and/or oven)
- Tomato sauce purée machine
- Bottle filling tub or large funnel, with scooping jug
- Dark brown beer bottles (if using 750ml bottles, then approximately 1 bottle per kilogram of unprocessed tomatoes)
- Bottle caps, 26mm crown seals
- Bottle capping machine
- Large stockpots or metal drums, sufficient to hold all bottles (as an example, a 170 litre or 60cmx60cm pot will comfortably hold 40 x 750ml bottles)
- 4 ring gas burners with 9kg LPG bottles, 1 each per pot or drum (a full 9kg LPG bottle on a 4-ring burner should burn for around 9 hours)
- Hessian sacks or thick towels, for layering in between bottles
Ingredients
- Tomatoes approximately 1kg to make 500-750ml sauce
- Salt approximately 1 generous tbsp per 1kg of tomatoes
- Basil enough for 1 large leaf in every bottle
Instructions
- Wash the tomatoes, ideally letting them drain in perforated tubs. Wash the basil.
- Remove any bad bits from the tomatoes, and then cut open to remove the watery cores.
- Stretch cheesecloths across the tops of large perforated tubs, and then layer the tomatoes, sprinkling with salt as you go. Leave for 2-3 hours, before bundling up in the cheesecloths and wringing out firmly to remove any water that has not already drained.
- Process the tomatoes using the purée machine, passing them through 5-6 times. Give the resulting purée a stir to ensure consistency, and add more salt (generously) to taste.
- Wash the bottles with hot, soapy water, before drying them in a 140 degree Celsius oven for 15-20 minutes. Sterilise the caps by sitting them in boiled water while you do this. Alternatively, for wider necked bottles or jars, you can use a dishwasher on its hottest setting.
- Drop a large leaf of basil into each bottle, and then fill using a filling tub or funnel; be sure to leave 3-4cm empty in the bottle necks for the sauce to expand when cooked. Cap firmly.
- Set the pots on their burners (but do not turn on yet), and then layer the bottles in tightly using the hessian or towels to prevent bottles touching. This will stop them knocking together and shattering as they heat.
- Fill pots with water to submerge all bottles, and then ignite burners and bring the water to a gentle boil. This may take up to 2 hours. Allow to cook for a further 4 hours, checking regularly to ensure that the boil remains low.
- Allow pots to cool completely overnight before removing bottles. Store in a cool, dark location.
What a magnificent post. Had me smiling the whole way through, then when I saw sourced from “Shepparton’, I realised we’re basically neighbours (I’m in Victoria…counts as neighbours). Tomorrow is our annual sauce day, with less participants, but just as many rules, opinions and love! What a wonderful experience for you and thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much for your kind words! I love that it found you the day before your own sauce day. Yes, I remember having a lot of trouble sourcing tomatoes that year. We were lucky to know a guy who knew a guy who had someone who could add some extra tomatoes into the back of his truck on the next delivery. I think it was the very last of them too! Wouldn’t be sauce day without drama. I hope yours went wonderfully, and thanks again for taking the time to leave a little feedback 😊🍅