Tis the season...
R.W. Apple, Jr., widely known as, “Johnny Apple”, writes about the glory of the tomato – particularly the prized jewels from vines of Vesuvius near Naples, Italy. “The region’s fertile soil, enriched for centuries by Mount Vesuvius, would make a pogo stick bear fruit,” he tells us in Far Flung and Well Fed, a great book on his eating adventures around the world.
All tomatoes are not all equal. They range from the one-dimensional sugary jumbo beefsteak, to thin skins with the perfect balance between acid and sweetness of the Neapolitan tomatoes.
What is it about this plump, juicy fruit that makes one wax poetic? The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda called tomatoes “the stars of the earth” which “grant us the festival of ardent color and all-embracing freshness.” Marcella Hazan writes that the tomato is “one of agricultural man’s greatest triumphs, one of the most glorious products he has ever grown.”
When I was 18 years old and head over heels for my now-husband, my first gift to him from sunny Florida was a box of freshly picked tomatoes. This didn’t seem strange to me – picked with love, packaged with TLC before making the long trek north of 2,000 miles. As a young university student, I’m sure he scratched his head. But those ‘stars of the earth’ won him over!
For me, the food in this region is the best in Italy. The sun kisses everything from lemons to basil; but, I haven’t tried the richly diverse cuisines of Sicily… that’s next.
Note to Alan Richman: I’ve been meaning to tell you, you are now the Da Vinci of Food Critics! Bravo!!
Learn more about our adventures in Italy with Da Vinci Capers ~ A Personal Renaissance Journey.
Tags: Professor Falcone, Ravello
