Recently, I came across a fascinating interview in the Financial Times with the Italian historian Alberto Grandi, provocateur and highly controversial figure in the sphere of Italian food. Grandi is a professor of Economics and Management at the University of Parma and earlier earned his PhD in Economic and Social History at the private University Luigi Bocconi in Milano. He has focused perhaps his most public research on the history of food history itself.
Grandi maintains that Italian cuisine, as we know it today, has origins that can only reliably be traced to the twenty years or so following the Second World War and is largely derivative. What? Doesn’t the history of La Cucina Italiana span centuries, if not millennia, akin to its storied monuments, piazzas, palazzos, and miracles of art and invention? Doesn’t Italy have the right to claim its cuisine as its very own? It appears that it does. Italy’s mighty food and drink sectors have planted a flag in their respective areas of production and cemented narratives around their exalted terroirs to protect them against foreign appropriation and fakery. It has done so by establishing designations recognized by the governing bodies and high standards of the EU. By regulating production methods and linking products to specific regions, labels bearing the acronyms DOP, IGP, DOC, DOCG, and STG are intended to ensure that consumers receive genuine, high-quality foods at the same time safeguarding Italy's cultural heritage. While Grandi is a champion of Italy’s food evolution and is reputed to be a “good fork” at the Italian table, he is also highly dubious of many of its historical claims. Last year, Italy made a bid for UNESCO recognition of its 800 protected PDO (Protected designation of origin) and PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) designations. In national assemblies, Italy played a key role in advocating for stronger protections aimed at preventing “Italian-sounding” counterfeits. Grandi ridiculed the designations, characterizing their contents as manifesting “a lot of bullshit.”
Grandi has published two manifesti explicating his theme. The first, Denominazione di Origine Inventata - (“Invented designation of origin”), turns the DOC on its head. He reminds Italians that only until after World War II, Italy had long struggled with poverty and a largely undernourished peasant population. Grandi points out that Italy was not a unified geographical expression until its unification in 1861, yet it took time for Italy to become an Italian citizenry. He notes: “If it was considered an arduous enterprise to teach Italians to speak the same language and have them accept the same laws, imagine how complicated it would have been to convince everyone to eat more or less the same dishes.” Furthermore, he refutes the idea that Italy ate like its even more distant antecedents, and many of the proprietary claims it makes today originated elsewhere.
With the extraordinary economic boom of the post-war ‘50s and '60s, Italy achieved a completely unforeseen level of prosperity in a relatively very short period of time, progress other European nations saw over the course of a century during the Industrial Revolution. According to Grandi, Italy needed an identity to forget its past struggles, and those Italians who emigrated en masse to North America at the end of the 19th century needed “myths” that would dignify their humble origins. His thesis is to “demonstrate that tradition can be invented and that the past can be manipulated for use and consumption in the present.”
Grandi’s second book, La Cucina Italiana Non-Esiste (Italian Cuisine doesn’t exist), co-authored with Daniele Soffiati, expands Grandi’s polemic. It delves into the fables of "traditional" Italian cuisine, which the authors assert is a modern construct shaped significantly by post-war economic and technological developments, such as the introduction of refrigerators and supermarkets. The authors argue that many iconic Italian dishes were born from marketing strategies and global influences rather than long-standing traditions.
Grandi’s polemic has been met with criticism and protests by the Italian media, Italian chefs, food critics, food professionals, and high-ranking politicians, and has been challenged by at least one American journalist. As he continues to systematically debunk the claims of the “gastronationalists” and the self-righteousness of his compatriots, Grandi’s position hasn’t won him any favor. Georgia Meloni, Italy’s Prime Minister, is known for her right-wing, nationalist political stance and impassioned advocacy for measures protecting Italy’s national identity and sovereignty. “Faith, Family and Homeland” was her campaign slogan, rhetoric that appealed to conservative voters advocating for the protection of Italian culture. To illustrate her message, Meloni included on her campaign trail a TikTok video in which an old lady teaches her how to seal tortellini by hand, which she demonstrates and then offers to the camera with a self-satisfied thumbs up. Her minister of culture, Francesco Lollobrigida, currently at the forefront of efforts to ban cultivated meat in Italy, proposed the far-fetched idea of establishing a task force to monitor Italian restaurants around the world to shore up Italy’s reputation for its officially listed 4820 “traditional food products”. The leader of the Far Right Lega del Nord party, Matteo Salvini, declared emphatically that Grandi and his apologists are “trying to erase our history, our culture.” In response, Grandi admonished him— “Study history!” Financial Time’s Mariana Giusti comments: “These politicians appear to care little if the traditional food culture they promote is partly based on a lie or recipes conceived by large Italian conglomerates or American food imports…Few things are more reassuring than an old lady making tortellini.”
In defense of his reputed heresies, Grandi insists that his motive is simply to expose the facts that history reveals— “to reconstruct the history of [Italian food] in a philologically correct manner.” **
In his books, you’ll discover some highly contentious facts—that the first recipe for the iconic Roman dish pasta alla carbonara appeared in 1953 in Chicago and that pizza sauce was born in New York and not in Naples; that it was an English merchant who actually conceived “Vino Marsala” adding alcohol to oxidized wine to fortify it on its sea journey from Sicily back to the motherland; He argues that it’s never told that the famous tomato of Pachino (IGP) cultivated in Siracusa, Sicily, was actually born in Israel by Hazera Genetics, one of the most important companies in the sector of genetics research. We learn that “Lo Spritz” actually has Austrian origins, that the original Parmesan cheese was made in Wisconsin, that European wines would cease to exist if the vines were not grafted on American rootstock, that Italian coffee is mediocre given that its espresso beans are burnt and carbonized to cover up their poor quality, that the Mediterranean diet was invented by an American and never followed by Italians. In sum, few of Italia’s typical products escape Grandi’s scrutiny.
In 2019, Grandi and his friend Daniele Soffiati introduced their Italian-language podcast, DOI, which took on the acronym of his first book, Denominazione di Origine Inventata. DOI has enjoyed 3 seasons and is now into its fourth, and Grandi/Soffiati has issued over 65 episodes that further explicate chapters in his books. Since its launch, DOI has had more than 1 million downloads. As Mariana Giusti reports in the Financial Times interview, “Grandi’s skill is in taking academic research and making it digestible. And his mission is to disrupt the foundations on which we Italians have built our famous, and infamously inflexible, culinary culture—a food scene where cappuccino must not be had after midday, and tagliatelle must have a width of exactly 7mm.” If you have the ability to read and understand spoken Italian, Grandi’s books and podcasts (available on Amazon and on major streaming apps) are both provocative and compelling.
With this in mind, I began to wonder about the actual origins of the celebrated San Marzano Tomato, as it is not on Grandi’s hit list. I was also curious to understand whether my homegrown San Marzanos measure up to those of legendary Italian status.
San Marzano tomatoes are elongated plum/paste tomatoes. They are meaty, low-acid, and contain less “gel” and fewer seeds.
Oral tradition has it that the seeds of the tomato arrived in Italy around 1770 as a gift from the king of Peru to the King of Naples and that it would have been planted in the zone corresponding to San Marzano and surrounds in the shadow of the active volcano, Mount Vesuvius. However, it wasn’t until 1902 that evidence provided proof of the presence of the famous ecotype in San Marzano, Nocera, and Sarno. An ecotype is a genetically distinct species that has adapted to specific environmental conditions and habitats in response to factors like climate, soil type, altitude, and climate. An ecotype is the sum of its breeding and its terroir. The original ecotype was improved through selective breeding by the more enlightened industrial canners in the area. Together with the grower cooperatives of the Sarno Valley, agricultural researchers from the Campania Regional Department of Agriculture determined the basic ecotype for San Marzano production. Following the recognition of the Designation of Origin (DOP), covering 41 municipalities in the provinces of Naples and Avellino, the Consortium for the Protection of the San Marzano tomato was established (Tutela del Pomodoro S. Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese Nocerino). You can immediately identify the consortium’s promo team at specialty food trade shows such as Cibus in Italy. They look like tomatoes. They all wear red.
The region surrounding Mount Vesuvius, in the Agro Sarnese-Nocerino area of Campania, boasts the perfect environment for cultivating these prized tomatoes. The fertile, mineral-rich soil from volcanic emissions, combined with ample water and a hospitable climate, is said to be responsible for the distinctive quality of the fruit. San Marzano tomatoes are typically sweet and mildly acidic, with elongated shapes that display a vivid red color, low presence of seeds and “gel” (the structure within the tomato that anchors the seeds and nutrients), and easy peelability. The protected designation of origin (DOP) designates exclusively the "peeled" product and the "peeled fillets" (slices) coming from the processing of the fruits. The regulations (disciplinare di produzione) specify in minute detail what San Marzano tomatoes released for consumption must have: uniform red color, an elongated shape, a length of about 2-1/2 to 3-/1/4 inches, and the absence of foreign flavors and odors. The drained weight must not be less than 65% of the net weight, and the fruit must have specific chemical values related to color and acidity. Some salt is permitted, as are basil leaves, and the lobes or “fillets” are packed in semi-concentrated tomato juice that must come from none other than San Marzano tomatoes. Cultivation techniques, harvesting, and peeling by hand have a strong impact on production costs. Its status as a rarefied DOP product recognized by the EU also contributes to the high cost on specialty grocery shelves.
I paid a high price for two brands: $12 for the Strianese brand and $19 + shipping for the Gustarossa brand that I purchased online. But are they worth it? I tasted them against domestic whole peeled Roma tomatoes processed and packed similarly in 28-ounce cans In the United States. San Marzano tomatoes are the genetic base for the Roma, another popular paste variety. The Roma is a cross between a San Marzano and two other varieties, one of which was also a San Marzano hybrid and was introduced by USDA’s agricultural research service in 1955. Frankly, I found the canned San Marzanos to be unremarkably similar in quality, flavor, texture, and appearance. Tomatoes packed and processed in a retort (industrial autoclave) always disappoint me with their tired flavor, dissipated color, and faint taste of tin. I admit I am spoiled. I grow my own tomatoes and put them up as whole peeled (pelati) in sauce and as various thicknesses of sauce (passato)—tomatoes cooked down and sieved to remove skins and seeds in a food mill and then reduced. I make a lot of both in season, and if we run out before the year turns around, we go without. When used as the basis for other seasoned sauces such as marinara, arrabbiata, amatriciana, or al basilico, I hold off before adding any herbs or aromatics as these elements are always more fresh tasting if added as the dish later requires. Interestingly, Daniele Soffiati commented in one of the DOI podcasts that San Marzano tomatoes, considered the best tomatoes for sauces, especially in Neapolitan pizza and pasta dishes, is generally used fresh and in season. Cooked to order or minimally processed will always taste better. I suppose the fact that the San Marzano tomatoes I grow and pack whole are, without a doubt, better in every way compared to the imports from Campania. In fairness, they do not undergo the degradation of the retort. Recently, I watched Stanley Tucci’s segment on Campania in which he visits a pizza chef who takes him to the site of a grower of San Marzano tomatoes. There is much said about the sacred terroir, the incomparable quality of a unique tomato, born, bred, and grown, that can only exist there. I call bullshit, and suppose I commit a blasphemy that Alberto Grandi might well condone.
Here are a few comments on home canning of tomatoes and my take on classic Pasta al Pomodoro:
Can tomatoes with caution as anything grown in the ground can carry the spores of Clostridium Botulinum (“C-bot”), a pathogen that produces a food-borne toxin. Tomatoes are considered a borderline low-acid food which means they don’t necessarily have enough acid to prevent C-Bot from growing. It’s often recommended to add acid in the form of lemon juice, citric acid, or vinegar to ensure a safe pH level of 4.6 or below. I am averse to the idea of adding acid in the form of lemon juice, citric acid, or vinegar without understanding if it’s really necessary. In the case of the San Marzano tomato, one of its most appealing attributes is its low acidity, which beautifully underpins the distinctly smooth paste it produces as a sauce. When it comes to food safety, it’s always best not to take chances. However, you can circumvent the acid additions if you test your sauce or your whole-cooked tomatoes. I always test with a simple pH meter to ensure they fall below the 4.6 threshold. Follow instructions for taking pH readings and use buffers to calibrate the instrument. When putting up whole pelati, I make sure to reduce the surrounding liquid to a thick, pulpy consistency which enrobes the whole fruit in a voluptuous sauce. The reduction also lowers the pH. Moreover, when used to top off a jar of whole peeled tomatoes, the thick sauce blends with the whole tomatoes when processed in the water bath, resulting in a mixture with a balanced consistency. I process my tomatoes in pint and quart jars with lids and seals (always replace with new lids for each new batch!) in a water bath for 20 minutes and wait for the signal click of the seals after they are pulled from the bath to verify a vacuum seal.
PASTA AL POMODORO SAN MARZANO
In order to have pasta that has fully absorbed the flavor of this special tomato, I shallow cook pasta directly in a mixture of chopped, preserved San Marzano sauce and salted water. I calculate the amount of this mixture based on the amount of liquid pasta generally absorbs, which is between 1.5 and 3 times the dry weight of the pasta. The difference in water and sauce is gauged by the quality of the pasta itself and how al dente you prefer its texture. In any case, it’s important to keep a kettle of boiling water going as you cook the pasta. I prefer to use high-quality capellini (“Angel Hair”) pasta, a kind of thin spaghetti, as it cooks relatively quickly. As a result, you avoid evaporating too much water and sauce before the pasta cooks. I use a wide saute pan that can accommodate the length of the pasta strands. If your pan is not wide enough, you can always break the pasta in half, although it’s better to have the long strands to twirl on a fork. Once you have joined pasta and sauce, add more water if necessary to just cover it.
It's best to cook the pasta over medium heat, turning it frequently and coating it with the watery sauce as it cooks down; otherwise, it has a tendency to stick to the bottom of the pan. As the pasta drinks up the sauce, taste it for texture and add a little more water if necessary until the texture is to your liking, then reduce it to a fairly tight consistency. Here are some rough proportions :
For two large portions
200 grams Cappellini Pasta
300 grams water
300 grams San Marzano Tomatoes in sauce. Whole tomatoes smashed coarsely
2 grams salt
20 small basil leaves
20 grams grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Romano Pecorino as you like. Add the cheese toward the very end of the cooking and a little more hot water to melt it thoroughly.
Check and correct for salt after adding the cheese. Serve with additional grated cheese.
SAVING SAN MARZANO SEEDS OR ANY TOMATO SEED FOR THAT MATTER
Certified San Marzano seeds (check with your nurseryman) are an heirloom non-hybrid, open-pollinated variety that will breed true from generation to generation. To save the seed, cut the tomatoes in half and, using your forefinger, extract the seeds and surrounding “gel”. Pour the seeds and gel into a jar and add a little water. Stir well. Cover with a lid and let stand at room temperature. The purpose of this is to ferment the mixture which allows for the sticky placental covering surrounding the seeds to fall away. When fully fermented, the seeds will drop to the bottom of the jar. Remove the floating top layer, sieve out the seeds, and rinse them thoroughly. Spread them to dry on an absorbent paper towel and allow them to dry thoroughly (the towel should also be dry). Pack the seeds in a clean, very dry jar. To ensure that the seeds remain dry, it’s a good idea to pack them with a silica gel desiccant, which you can buy online.
For more information on the San Marzano Tomato, see Nancy Harmon Jenkins's excellent piece entitled “Tomato Time, Sugo, Salsa, Marinara and Red Gravy”), in her “On the Kitchen Porch” on Substack.
**All quotes of Alberto Grandi are my translations from the Italian.
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