Passata Day

My husband's cousin is married to an Italian. Every year, at the end of summer, his family would gather and make tomato sauce. The sauce would then be kept in sterilised bottle and used throughout the year. I have been given a few bottles and the taste of the tomato is so intense and rich.

This year, I was priviledged to be invited to this event (Actually, I invited myself over!). We started fairly early in the morning. When we arrived at his aunt's place, there were twelve crates of beautiful Roma tomatoes waiting to be washed. After a rinse, the tomatoes were boiled briefly to soften the flesh. The tomatoes were then placed on a long table that is on an incline. This allows water to drain freely. The tomatoes were then pierced with forks to release further moisture.

The best part was pushing the tomatoes through the machine. The unadulterated sauce that flowed out was intensely red in colour. The other end of the machine spits out the pulp which is put through the machine twice to extract as much sauce as possible. After that, the dry pulp is push through a smaller hand operated machine. I was suprised that the machine was able to extract further a thick tomato paste, and the colour remained unchanged.

A dozen people or so worked through the morning. It was more fun than work, getting covered in tomato and watching the interactions of an extended family. There were lots of good-natured jestering and laughter. We then had lunch, which was a sausage sizzle and a platter of cold meat with bread. Some of the tomatoes were also made into a beautful salad.

It made me think of all the different cultures and traditions of the world. We are privileged to live in such a multicultural and interacially harmonious society.

Once all the sauce was extracted, salt was added to the mixture. The sauce was then funnelled into sterilised bottles and capped.
We were just about finished before the storm came and belted hailstones. The water tanks filled up quickly and a leak appeared in a corner. Luckily, we were cleaning up at the time.

This was an amazing experience for me, not only for being involved first hand, but I also got to feel so much warmth and grace from this loving family.  It was a very satisfying day.