Slice of Life Story Challenge -March 17 -A Time for Harvesting Tomatoes

It’s St Patrick’s Day and in an ironic twist I found myself participating in a traditional Italian family tradition.  Today my friend Anna and her family conducted their annual tomato bottling day and Vicki and I were privileged to be invited to take part. The day started early, for this is important work.

This gathering of the family continues to honour Anna’s mother, Maria who taught her children the enduring practices of preserving tomatoes in preparation for use in honoured Italian recipes. Recipes that continue to permeate the daily lives of this proud family. Impressively, the younger generation of grandchildren featured strongly in the day's proceedings. The future viability of this family tradition seems assured. it runs deep. Maria would be well pleased.

As the day unfolded, I found myself recalling how my parents also engaged in this wonderful act of preserving the summer harvest. Fruits and vegetables preserved in large glass jars –sealed tight and boiled, in readiness for use at some future date. Tomatoes, green tomato pickles, jams, and chutneys were staples of those former preserving days. Pantry shelves were stacked with summer’s bountiful bottled produce. These memories swirl around me as the work of transforming the tomatoes gathers momentum.

Today, a wiling army of tomato troops washed and sorted the tomatoes. A portion of the tomatoes were then chopped and repreatedly sieved to make ‘passata’ ( tomato puree). The rest were chopped, deseeded and packed tightly into bottles to make tomato conserve (tomato pieces with basil).  The respective batches of tomatoes were then boiled to well established cooking times, before being stored to cool. The precision of these processes have been honed over many years.  All details regarding weight, participants etc are faithfully recorded in Maria’s tomato day notebook.

Anna and her siblings are not only preserving tomatoes, but are fiercely determined to preserve tradition and keep alive their mother’s legacy.  I find these actions most re-assuring. They are protective of family inclusive actions.

Following a morning of frenzied activity, we downed tools and gathered for lunch.  I note the precision and cohesiveness of the cleanup. i further note the ease of preparing for the follow up feast.

The tomato troops, all fourteen of us gathered around a large table and shared a fluncheon of authentic Italian fare, accompanied by lashing s of bread and wine. The air around us is sweet and heavy with ripened tomatoes and the pungency of basil.  At the conclusion of our celebratory lunch Anna produces a surprise. –Canoli imported from Sicily for her café , Via Boffe. A sweet delight provides a flavour filled bookend to our day of pomodoro productivity. Bellisimo!





 
 
 
 

Comments

  1. CMacWW17 March 2013 at 23:44

    I could taste the tomato conserve as I read. What a wonderful tradition!

    ReplyDelete
  2. elsie18 March 2013 at 13:54

    What a wonderful tradition and I am so glad you were able to record this with words and photos. That's a lot of tomatoes! My mouth was watering throughout.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular With Other Visitors

Writing Opposite Poems

Image
 O pp o s ite  P oem s In his book, ' How To Write Poetry,'  Paul Janeczko presents the idea of opposite poems. Paul suggests they could also be referred to as antonym poems. This is wordplay and it's fun to try. Here are some examples Paul provides to help us see very clearly how these short little poems work. I think the opposite of chair Is sitting down with nothing there What is the opposite of kind? A goat that butts you from behind Paul Janeczko You will  notice the poems are written in rhyming couplets. They can be extended so long as you remember to write in couplets. Paul shows us how this is done. What is the opposite of new? Stale gum that's hard to chew A hot-dog roll as hard as rock Or a soiled and smelly forgotten sock You might notice that some of Paul's opposite Poems begin with a question. The remainder of the poem answer the question posed. Opposite poems are a challenge, but it is a challenge worth trying. Not every thing has a
Read more

Writing About Reading - Reading Reflection Journals:

Image
UPDATED February 2022 Writing in response to literature can be a great way for students to organize their thoughts, explore what they think, and generate ideas. One of the strengths of writing in journals is that it allows students to capture all of those great ideas that generally float off into the air during the discussion.  Journal writing can also become drudgery if students are asked to write too often, given little choice or inspiration in what to write, or if they simply don't have anything to say. While some students eagerly share their impressions about selections they have read in class discussions, others are less comfortable and keep their thoughts to themselves. In an effort to encourage all students to think more about what they read and confidently share their observations and opinions, some teachers are turning to the reading reflection journal and are gaining insights they never anticipated.  The Value of Reflection Journals   Journals assist teachers to gain i
Read more

Learning How to 'Zoom In' When Writing

Image
It is important for young writers to understand that not all parts of a story are equal. There are parts through which a writer moves quickly, and important parts where the writer slows down and lingers a while. This is where the writer might intensify the action or reveal the character’s reactions in greater detail. Young writers need to know that this is a deliberate strategy on the part of the author. The author consciously zooms in. The writer uses a magnifying glass to view a part of the story more closely; to focus on a moment and to slow down time. When an important part of the story is enlarged upon, it   is a signal to the reader, that this part of the story is important. The strategy of ‘zooming in’ goes by many names: ‘exploding a moment’ ‘magnifying a moment’, ‘hotspot’ ‘snapshot’, ‘adding detail’ or ‘slowing the action.’  What ever the name, the idea is the same. The author writes in a way that expands a significant part of the story with the intention of drawing t
Read more

Answering Questions Posed by Young POETS

Image
UPDATED, May 2020 As a frequent visitor to schools I have the great pleasure of working with groups of young, enthusiastic poets and their teachers. When I arrive in a classroom, young poets are often pre-loaded with questions, and most keen to have them answered.  I try to answer as many as I can, but we frequently run out of time, and the poetry caravan moves on to the next classroom. So I am here to answer some of those questions -right here, right now. So here goes: When you were little did you love writing? The short answer is yes. I have always enjoyed words and language. I can't recall a time when I wasn't doing some kind of writing. When did you write your first poetry book? I have had poems published over the years, but it wasn't until 2014 that I had an entire book of poems (an anthology) published. When I looked back through all my notebooks I realized I had hundreds of poems from which to choose. So, 'Searching For Hen's Teeth-Poetry From The
Read more

Slice Of Life Story-The Trials Of A Left Handed Writer

Image
Amazingly I learnt to write using my left hand. An achievement against the prevailing beliefs of the day. My very first teacher saw it as her mission in life to ‘fix’ the poor, wretched little boy suffering from what she clearly diagnosed as left handed disease. She must have thought, 'This child must be re formatted! If he remains left handed he will be forever condemned to writing in a scrawl that no one will be able to read. Ugly hand, ugly hand.' ...They tried to say it couldn't be done, it mustn't be done. They took the pencil out of my left hand and placed it in my right hand. It felt unnatural. It felt weird. It was not right. More to the point it was not left. I was not about to conform. At least they didn't try tying my hand behind my back. Watch me I said. I may be an oddball, left handed scribbler but I am a determined oddball. I mean how boring would the world be if everyone wrote with their right hand? So I dug my toes in –and my hands to
Read more