Heirloom Tomato Sauce

Sixty cents a pound.   That's what I paid the other day for heirloom tomatoes at the Studio City Farmers Market. At that price, a twenty-two pound box of the most gorgeous varieties including Brandywines, Pineapples and Cherokee Blacks came to $13 dollars even.

How could it be?

They were "seconds"—dead ripe 'maters that had been slightly bruised in transport that morning. I'm usually wary of second-class fruit, because a preserve can only be as good as the ingredients that go into it. But with food, you can usually smell quality, so I picked up the ugliest, mashiest tomato from the table and sniffed it. It was great—no whiff of that sour smell that comes off smashed tomatoes after only a few hours. Back in July I paid $4 per pound for tomatoes no better.

But still, sixty cents a pound?

An old lady saw me staring at the price sign in disbelief.

"These are good," she reassured me as she packed about 4 pounds worth into her bag.

Farmer Nestor, a young guy with dark hair and blue agate eyes, heard us talking and came over.

"A lotta people make sauce with'em," he said.

My plan exactly—thanks to Cindy & Nick. Back at Claire & Ben's engagement party, Nick & Cindy, married partners in a Green-energy consulting firm in Northern California, told me about the overwhelming productivity of their backyard garden last year. Their heirloom tomato vines in particular yielded by the bushel. When Cindy said she ground much of the harvest into tomato sauce, I was shocked. Romas are for sauce, I protested, and heirlooms should be lovingly sliced on a platter and sprinkled with coarse sea salt and basil chiffonade.

"But why?," she asked. "Heirlooms have the best flavor. They make the best sauce."

"It was in-CRED-i-ble," said Nick, who is English and shares his countrymen's way with wild exclamation.

It turns out Nick & Cindy were right. Because each variety of heirloom tomato has a different flavor profile, the sauce from a mixed batch has the equivalent of a four-octave range. It hits the palate with a burst of bright, tangy coloratura and then glides down into a dark, almost meaty basso. It really is incredible—a homemade "Ode to the Tomato."

HEIRLOOM TOMATO SAUCE

Any quantity of mixed heirloom tomatoes (One word of caution: weight your mix heavily in favor of red tomatoes over lower-acid yellow ones, since the high acid content of tomatoes is what allows us to safely can them using the boiling-water method).

1 Tablespoon of bottled lemon juice ***PER PINT*** (must be bottled, not fresh, for controlled acidity)

1 Prepare the tomatoes: blanch them a few at a time in a large quantity of boiling water for 1 minute, then lift out with a slotted spoon and plunge into a basin of ice water. When cool, remove them to drain but do not begin to peel until you've blanched them all.

2 Now you need to work quickly: peel three or four tomatoes and quarter them into a pot large enough to hold your entire batch. Crush the tomatoes (I just squeeze them with my hands). You want to have enough pulp and liquid to cover the bottom of the pot. Bring to a boil.

3 Once the boil has begun, continue to peel and quarter tomatoes one at a time. Press them into the boiling pot so that they heat through as quickly as possible. Stir occasionally so your pot doesn't scorch, but maintain a steady boil. Once all the tomatoes are into the pot, boil for 10 minutes.

4 Pass the tomatoes through a food mill. (I use a coarse blade because I like the texture, but use a finer blade or a Chinois if you'd prefer to strain the seeds.) Return puree to the pot.

5 Return to a boil and reduce while stirring by half, or until thickened to your preference. Salt to taste—but use a fairly light hand, since you may further reduce the sauce when cooking with it later.

6 Line up your clean jars. Add into each jar 1 Tablespoon of bottled lemon juice ***PER PINT.*** (Ie, a quart jar gets 2 Tablespoons lemon juice.) Ladle tomatoes into your jars, seal and process in a boiling-water bath per USDA guidelines: 35 minutes for pint jars (at sea level), 40 minutes per quart (at sea level.)

7 When boiling-water bath is complete, turn off the heat and allow jars to sit in the pot of water, uncovered, for 5 minutes. This allows the pressure inside the jars to stabilize and prevents leakage when you remove the jars to cool.

YIELD
22 pounds of tomatoes yielded 10 pints of sauce