Adesso!
The FIERI Boston Newsletter
Edizione Giugno 2001

"A Fare li Jarri" or The Italian American Tomato-Jarring Process
By Rina Crugnale

Every year in the later part of August, when most teenage kids' thoughts rolled around to the last weekends of summer, the beach, or the impending new school year, I would be dreaming up plausible excuses why I couldn't go "tomato picking" (or reasons why one of my brothers should go in my place!). My mother had allergies, so she was excluded from going to "la farma" (this was basically the only thing she never had to do, but made up for it with double the work during the canning process). Even as I saw how much it reeked havoc on her eyes, sinuses, nose, and throat - this was the only time I ever wished for allergies!

[As a sidenote, I will explain that I like to use the phrase "jarring the tomatoes" because I have an issue with the word "can" or canning - in this instance. There are no cans involved in the canning process, you use Mason jars, so why would it be canning? (. . . but I digress) I also find it amusing to use "jarring the tomatoes" because "fare li jarri" is a dialect/Itanglish phrase for "canning".]

Now, you had choices of where to get your tomatoes. You could go to "lu market" (big open fruit market in Chelsea), or if you were one of the "lucky" ones who had plenty of land, you could get enough out of your own garden; still others opted to go to the farms in New Hampshire and hand-pick and inspect each and every tomato. That was what we did, and all that was missing was the little white tag stating "Inspected by Compare #3". Now, I don't know exactly how many tomatoes are actually in a bushel, but I would guess . . .oh, say, approximately two thousand? Well, at least that's what it seemed like at the time.

When we were younger we used to all go together with our compari, my Godparents and my three brothers' Godparents to New Hampshire to pick tomatoes, but the adults soon realized this was a bad idea, after a few of the children started what was known as the "vegetable throwing incident" and we were banned from la farma (che vergogna). Ok, maybe we weren't technically "banned", but we never did return to that particular farm again. After that, the kids had to take turns going.

One year I actually had a tomato-picking-injury: I sprained my ankle when a tomato vine rose up from the ground (honest) and wrapped around my ankle causing me to trip and fall. The emotional trauma from that injury was my excuse for getting out of going the following year.

No matter who actually went to la farma, or who got out of it, when
it came to the next step, in our house, it was a total family affair. There was no escaping it - no other plans, previous engagements, or obligations would persuade my father. The only way out of it was severe illness or Act of God.

When two of my brothers got married, I mistakenly thought, less people--less jars. However, as though someone was playing a cruel trick on me, and the utter delight and pride of my parents, both my non-Italian sisters-in-law agreed that the sauce was much better when you used "li jarri" and, yes, they too wanted to do "li jarri" which meant triple the amount instead of less.

The process is a tedious, if not complicated one. After you have your tomatoes in your possession, you need to lay them out into a single layer, taking up every inch of available space in your cellar, garage, etc. You cannot keep the tomatoes in the bushels for long because one bad tomato (that might have slipped past a rookie "inspector") could rot and then infect all the other tomatoes. Have you ever smelled rotten tomatoes on a hot Summer day? Let me assure you, it's not pleasant. It was a good thing you had eaten tomato salad during the whole month of August, because after this day you couldn't stand to look at, smell or eat a tomato for weeks.
Anyway, you have to make sure the jars and the lids are sterilized as well as pick, wash and dry the basil leaves. Then the actual process includes: washing the tomatoes, quickly hand drying them, cutting them into quarters, passing them through the grinder, then passing the skin & seeds through again (lest you waste valuable pulp!). So, you need a couple of washers, a couple of cutters, one to put the tomatoes in the grinder, one to push them down into the grinder with the special plastic "safety club" while someone is preparing the pans, setting up the outside gas burners and putting the basil in the jars. One of my small nieces is usually entrusted with the what they believe to be the biggest honor of placing one basil leaf in each tomato jar.

Once you have enough tomato puree to start working with, during the next stretch, one person has to hold the funnel, one has to pour the sauce into the jars, and then the strongest of them all has to twist & seal the lids tightly so as not to let air in. (I believe air can be a "jarred" item's worst enemy!)

Now, there are different ways to jar the tomatoes and informal family studies show that each way has it's own advantages, and in any event it's really not up for discussion or argument, (not, if you know what's good for you). As in anything that involves good food, there is some element of science involved. For instance, you might want to weight the advantages of planning the ratio of beefsteak to plum tomatoes because plum tomatoes give a thicker sauce. How much oil to top off the jar? Basil was a must, but some put salt as well while others refuse to. Some boil the sauce then put it in jars, while others put the sauce in the jars then place the jars in the pots to boil them (Bagnamarina style). There is also the type called "a pezzetti" (in small pieces) which does not involve pureeing the tomatoes at all. These are all general ways of doing it, I am in no way authorized to give out anyone's family recipes. Actually if I had used names in this article, which you'll notice I did not, they would have been changed to protect the identities of the parties involved.

Tomato jarring is serious business, there's no fooling around here. You have to know what you're doing. This is going to affect the sauce on your pasta at Sunday dinner and Holidays during the next 12 months!!

To put things in perspective, it can be a wonderful family experience. When seen through the eyes of a child, you might be able to appreciate the fun and satisfaction that came out of the event. One year my, then-4 year old, niece burst out this heartfelt exclamation: "This is the most fun thing I ever had in my WHOLE life". But, truthfully, the fun can only be seen in retrospect, I would not suggest going up to someone who's been at it for 10 hours and saying "Isn't this a great family bonding experience?"!!

In our family, like many other things, it WAS a family event, make no mistake about it. We were all expected to pitch in. We would gather on a Saturday or Sunday and start early in the morning in the back yard (our neighbors probably dreaded this day too since that imported top-of-the-line tomato grinder with the Italian motor was very noisy). We may have had a hard time as teenagers convincing my father that we "needed" and "had to have" a new stereo, but for the imported tomato grinder - no expense was too great!!

This tomato grinder had to be on a sturdy surface, so it was temporarily bolted down to the 8-foot long, hand-made (by my father) picnic table with the iron crisscrossed legs. When it was being constructed, there were those who may have scoffed at the wooden picnic table with the welded iron crisscrossed legs and matching benches, but my father knew the uses this Italian picnic table would have to endure.

When all was finished, the shelves in the Tomato Room were completely filled to capacity. As a testament to how important good food is to an Italian family, the jars even had their own room in the cellar, next to la cantina which we all referred to as "the Tomato Room". It was a logical name and we became so used to it that it didn't phase us, until one day I happened to mention the "Tomato Room" in front of a non-italian friend who turned to me with a strange look on her face and questioned "You have a room in your house set aside just for tomatoes???" At that moment I felt that little twinge inside, neither good nor bad, but a reminder that I was different in many ways from other American kids. I guess it was the same feeling I would get during lunch period at school when other Italian American kids and I would pull out our Italian bread stuffed with, to the horror of our "American" friends, such things as frittata, mortadella, prosciutto, Nutella, a breaded cutlet, or last night's leftovers. These sandwiches would produce such comments as "eeew what's that?!!!" And we'd have to explain. . . . it's like an Omelet, it's like Italian Baloney, it's like Italian Ham, it's like Italian Peanut Butter. These days, however, I get some satisfaction from the fact that my former schoolmates are paying big money in fancy restaurants where they're dipping their focaccia in olive oil, ordering tomato and mozzarella salads or gnocchi and getting polenta on the side of their meals. Next thing you know they're all going to want to start jarring their own tomatoes!!!