May The Sauce Be With You

About a month back I saw an interesting page on the net that documented how one Italian family made their pasta sauce.  The page is no longer reachable otherwise I would add the link, but it got me thinking.  Our own family, being Italian, have that day as well, where the whole family get together and make a year's supply of pasta sauce, and reading through the page mentioned above and speaking to a few other people at work who do it as well put the idea in my head that I should document the way OUR family does it.You see, every region has their own method for making it and, indeed, every family has their own take on the regional traditions, and it's really fascinating that, for what is essentially the same end result, the way in which different families get there can vary.

So, we begin with the essentials:

Around February/March signs will appear that will tell people that tomatoes for sauce are available to be bought.  Usually they are bought by the case.  This year, our family did 15 cases of them.  Along with the juicy fruit, you need tools

The tubs are used when the tomatoes are actually minced and are all liquidy while the baskets are for draining and carrying the washed tomatoes and the bottle tops are pretty self-explanatory 

The tomatoes themselves need to be washed as they've only been packed into the foam cases with whatever vine leaves and other stuff has been put in there as they've been packed.

Washing also gives the washer the fun task of being the first to go through and pick out whatever ones are not suitable for use.  Some may be over ripe, some might have mould etc, what you would expect the fruit shop to pick through when putting it on the shelf to buy.

Now, I know this next part differers from what other families do.  Some other families will cook or boil the tomatoes but we don't.  After they've been washed, a couple of people will sit down and begin slicing them up into halves or quarters, depending on the size of the tomato, so it can fit into the mincer.  As they are being cut and put into a large tub, salt is sprinkled through them, twice.  The first time when the tub is about half-full and the second time, when the tub is completely full.

The salt acts to flavour and preserve the sauce.  There are many, many tubs to go through before all the sauce is done.

Next, we pass the tomatoes through the mincer and we have what will become our sauce.  The mincer separates what we call the "skins".

That is simply the chunks of the tomatoes that were solid, rather then the liquid we need for the sauce.  However, the skins themselves still contain quite a lot of juice from the tomatoes themselves and so we pass them through the mincer once to make sure we get as much from them as possible.  Once the skins have come through again they are not as juicy, so putting them through again wouldn't yield as much liquid.  After it's been passed through, it is perfect for the compost pile or, in the case of my grandparents old house, the chicken coop.

Another area my family differs from others is how we put the basil in.  After speaking with other people, I've learned that they will put a couple of leaves inside the bottle before filling them.  We used to do that, but it got quite a hassle when the leaves would stick in the neck of the bottle and you would have to poke them down.  When we do sauce, we use a more time saving effort.

As we are mincing the tomatoes, a few basil leaves go through as well.  That mixes in with the sauce, saves time when trying to put them in the bottles and frees up a person to help elsewhere.

When a tub is filled with sauce, it's carted over to where the bottles are waiting to be filled.

And that is only the bottles that will fit on the tables.  The bottles are filled the old fashioned way.  We have a couple of small pots and funnels.  We fill the pots and pour the sauce through the funnel and fill the bottles.  Not too fill or when they are cooking they will force the caps off and they will leak.

Once they've been filled and capped they are stacked into big drums that we fill with water

We light a fire beneath them.  Once the water is boiling we put out the fire and let them cook in that hot water for several hours.  Once the water is cool enough, usually the next day, the drums are emptied and the bottles stored for use throughout the year.  Depending on the amount we do, we may need to do 2 boilings.

As we are working away outside, more work is being done inside.  Because it is a day where the whole family gets together, a family meal is being prepared.  And because we are hard at work making sauce, what better meal can be made then pasta?  Nothing.  The sauce is as fresh as it can get, literally just coming from the mincer.  With it only needing a little onion and garlic fried before:

Nothing can possibly taste better then fresh!  This is what we worked hard for throughout the day:

It truly is a family day.  Ourselves, we had family fly in from interstate to help.  It's a day when even the youngest family member can help with something.  It is a hard day's work but the effort put forth is rewarding.