Tomato Tribute

Solanum lycopersicum

 (fruit of the month)

 

Our beef tomato (cuore di bue) crop this year has offered up some impressive specimens.

One above all, weighing in at 877 grams, has inspired a tribute from afar. 

"Every August a tomato festival is held in the little village of San Giovanni Pomodorino. Contestants come from near and far for the coveted prize, pomodoro gigantico, which is to produce a cuore di bue as near as possible to 1 kilo in weight. 
 

This year Lulu from the nearby village of Santa Letizia Martina arrived late for the ceremony.  She rushed up to the stall where the judges were already preparing to award the prize.  Only one tomato had managed just under 850 grams.  

When they saw the size of Lulu’s entry the judges conferred and decided to accept her exhibit.  They placed the tomato on the scales.  It came in at just under 900 grams.  The chief judge who came from the rival village of San Giuseppe Solanum surreptitiously put her finger on the scales to give a reading of 1000 grams.
 

Lulu returned in triumph to her village where the cuore di bue now sits benignly in a niche, labelled In excelsis australis."

Thanks to H of Higher Bugford, North Devon.

Oscar Tintori's Garden of Eden

The Citrus Hesperidarium at Pescia

If you drive to the west coast from Florence you may take the Firenze-Mare motorway along the broad valley of the Arno all the way to the sea and Pisa or Lucca. En route you will be treated to views of one of Tuscany's celebrated plant nursery districts (others are to be found further south along the Arno and in Versilia on the coast). 

Battalions of cyprus, platoons of magnolias, brigades of tufted or twisted ornamental bushes, divisions of deciduous trees, regiments of shrubs: an entire army of woody plants marches towards the sea. It is a magnificent display of human enterprise, the varieties of horticulture and human-imposed order.

If you have time (and you really should make time), on the way towards Pisa and the coast, you could make a detour at Pescia (exit at Chiesina Uzzanese) to visit the glorious, perfumed citrus nursery founded by Oscar Tintori. Here you will find gigantic greenhouses covering 2000 square metres and sheltering hundreds of different varieties of citrus plants.

Food of the Month: Remarkable Cavolo Nero or Tuscan Kale

 A Rustic Vegetable, Rediscovered

other names for this brassica are dinosaur kale, black kale, flat back cabbage, palm tree kale

It appears that a local peasant staple is currently the healthfood of choice in much of the western world. Brassica oleracea Lacinato is a tough plant which requires little attention and enjoys a long growing season, from one spring to another. It is particularly crunchy and tasty following winter frost. 

Fruit of the Month: the persimmon

Ripeness is All

 

Of the genus diospyros, family Ebenaceae - which is the family of the ebony tree - the most widely consumed is the Asian persimmon Diospyros kaki. Diospyros comes from Greek, meaning divine fruit or literally, 'wheat of Zeus' otherwise translated as 'Jove's fire' or 'God's pear'. In modern Greek it is called lotos and associated with the food of the lotus-eaters in the Odyssey, although there are multiple candidates for this honour. Interestingly, it has several names in Italian: loto in the south, diosporo in central Italy, cachi or kaki in the north.

The pretty word 'persimmon' comes from Native American Algonquian pessamin, strangely meaning dry fruit. I wonder if this refers to the persimmon's astringency when under-ripe, which leaves the mouth chalky-dry, thanks to the fruit's high levels of tannins. To custom-ripen or 'blet' in the home, store the persimmons in a pot with some apples, pears or bananas which exude the ethylene needed for ripening. Alternatively, persimmons can be ripened through freezing.

Fruit of the Month: the Wild Strawberry

Fragaria Vesca

Tiny, deep red, of fragrant perfume and taste, wild strawberries are a tempting addition to the garden. 

Fruit of the Month: Loquats

the underrated loquat, eriobotrya japonica

It is hard to find loquats at the greengrocer in the English-speaking world, but in Italy in early spring you will see these small, oval, thin-skinned, apricot-coloured fruits even in supermarkets. They are native to China, were naturalized in Japan and have been cultivated in the West for quite some time.
Here they are called nespole, the tree a nespolo.

Olive Oil 2

Fruit of the Month: the Olive
or
The Olive Harvest 2013

Recently (January 2014) a horrifying animated chart appeared in the New York Times exposing (not for the first time) olive oil fraud. This should make us appreciate the small producers more and understand that their prices are high for a good reason. And here is an excellent blog by Tom Mueller which covers the subject of olive oil and oil fraud very well.

For more on olive oil please see last year's post as well.

 

I was unable to participate in the olive harvest this year as planned, but a friend who took part for the first time has provided some photos and a couple of excellent short films to give an idea of how things are done nowadays in Chianti.

This year rain was a problem: it held up the harvest from one day to the next. But in the end everyone managed to make their oil.

Fruit of the Month: the quince

The Quintessential Quince

one of our two quince trees

October is the month of the quince. At least it is at Le Ripe where the overall success rate in our orchard is somewhat limited: quinces abound this year but there is nary an apple.

quinces are very attractive but I store them on windowsills also to ripen them and to enjoy their lovely aroma

Fruit of the Month: Figs

It's that fig time again

I wrote about figs last year but it is fitting to record this year's harvest of the most abundant, low-maintenance, stress-free gift of the gods we have at Le Ripe.

I predict I shall be bottling kilos of fig puree this season, but our guests will also be able to benefit from the bounty of our several trees.

To think that we did not have to plant, cage, prune, feed or spray these trees. Our only task is to harvest and eat.