It is long and tube-shaped and could be mistaken for a pepper, but it is not. It is a San Marzano tomato. And it has brought generations of Italian friends and families together to make San Marzano passata, a special sauce made from the tomato. The uniquely shaped fruit is fleshier and contains fewer seeds than other tomatoes, and as it ripens in the hot summer months of July and August, it becomes the ideal sauce tomato.
Different in texture from tomato paste and tomato sauce, passata is a rich and chunky sauce sought after by cooks for use in recipes as varied as soups, stews, and pizza toppings.
Passata (which is Italian for pass through) is made by pressing the San Marzanos through a mouli (a sieve that processes large amounts of tomatoes) or a simple food mill. The goal is to remove the large seeds and skin and the process can be done on a large or small scale.
Whether the pressing and sieving occurs before or after the tomatoes are cooked, and if cooked, for how long, are points of debate, as is whether herbs like basil are added to the passata. However it is made, most cooks agree that cooked passata offers a richer sauce, and uncooked passata can add the right texture for their recipes.
Seeds for the tomato are widely available, but true passata is made from tomatoes grown in the San Marzano commune in southern Italy. The seed made its way to this region from Peru, and has become the pride of the region. You often see a DOP stamp on commercial cans of products made with San Marzano tomatoes. This is the Denominacion de Origen Protegida or Protected Denomination of Origin stamp given when the tomato is grown according to agricultural laws in Italy. You can still try to plant seeds and try your hand at smashing up a batch of passata di pomodoro as it also known from a backyard crop.
For generations, Italians gathered together in the spirit of a party to mash up boxes of the wonderful San Marzano tomato in what was called the fare di passata. It was usual to can enough passata to have available for the rest of the year. Nowadays, with canned and bottled varieties of passata available commercially, the fare di passata is not held so much.
Lots of choice today: fresh, homegrown passata, or select from the offerings at your grocers. A note of safety: If you plan to have a fare la passata and put up your own bottles, please consult a canning guide and follow proper procedures for sanitizing and sealing the bottles.
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