I've spent the summer canning. Obsessively. Pick a fruit. Any fruit. Okay, a local fruit. It's on my shelf. In a jar, in a syrup, a jam, maybe a jelly or a pickle. I've lost my fear of canning and for the first time I'm putting up everything. This week I'm on tomatoes. San Marzano tomatoes. I would have passed the San Marzanos up at the farmers' market if I hadn't been told they were good. They look hot house, too shiny, too conformed, all the same size. They look like a chorus line, each one in the same costume. I shop for disheveled heirloom varieties. The lumpy, jowly varieties that are art when sliced in any direction.
The first time I sliced into a polished San Marzano I grimaced. Grocery store, I thought. Not a lot of meat or seeds, or, well, anything. It was nearly hollow. I tossed a few in a pan; with a little heat the skins came easily off. I worked them; but not too much, stirring, pulling out the peels. They became almost delicate.
Not expecting much I put a dimes worth on the end of the wooden spoon. The first taste I didn't believe. I put a nickles worth on the spoon, then a quarter. I was sure. The taste was sunshine. New sunshine. It tasted like the first part of the day when everything is still possible. It tasted pure, pure tomato, and it was love.
I've since slow roasted them, a few hours at 170, peeled back their skin, one half at a time and slid them directly into my mouth, the taste as brilliant as the inner mandala of an heirloom.
And I've turned the San Marzanos into sauce. It didn't take much; a warm pan, a food mill, they melted into sauce as fast as I could get them into jars and seal them.
Winter is going to be sweet.
