Tomatoes Around Town

My first week in Florence alone, I have both seen and sampled so many tomatoes. Tomatoes pureed, in soup, in pasta sauces, on top of pizzas, alone. The Columbian Exchange brought goods, ideas, and products between the Old and New Worlds (Nun and Qian, 2010), and tomatoes from the Americas to Italy. While the tomato’s history is crucial to its root understanding, it serves as a core, unwavering, and omnipresent element of identity and culture, though a product of history and change over time. Tomatoes shifted over the span of three centuries from causing intense fear and hostility to widespread acceptance; their broad cultivation and availability today is particularly important (Gentilcore, 2010: 1). As a Fascist symbol, as food for the poor (Serao, 1884), as an object to throw at the theater, and as a now ubiquitous grocery store product, tomatoes are interesting from their most basic elemental composition to their profuse Italian history and current usage and interpretation. As Gentilcore states, “Italy is Europe’s premier tomato nation” (2010), not possible without exchange.

I left class on a rainy Tuesday and walked through the cobblestoned streets over to the little alley-way Conad on my block. As I perused peaches and considered broccoli, I saw the brightest red tomatoes, still on vine, on the top shelf. The cherry tomatoes I selected were then bagged, labeled, and rung up before accompanying me home where I sliced them, added olive oil and balsamic vinegar, lightly toasted fresh, warm bread, and layered basil and mozzarella on top. The tomatoes were firm on the outside, but accidentally bruised a bit from our quick trek up the winding stairs of my apartment. I sliced and sautéed the others I had brought home and popped them into the soup I made for dinner, along with some tomato paste I had intensely searched for at Conad hours earlier. Back at home, when I make the same soup, I use imported canned San Marzano tomatoes from Naples. Here, I used Conad’s variety, which added the perfect rich flavor and deep color to my dinner.

As Gentilcore discusses, even dishes like pasta al pomodoro, which seem so perfectly indubiously Italian, are fairly recent inventions (2010 xi). In stereotypes of Italian kitchens and decorations, tomatoes are often front and center, dating back to the centuries they were considered unsafe for consumption -- their crimson color instead used for decoration. Without much meat or dairy available, the poor survived off vegetables, most often small portions with a chestnut-mixed bread to fill the stomach. As Serao’s exposé of how the poor in Naples live exemplifies, small crusts and meals purchased for one soldo were the norm. Pizza slices were for the poor, occasionally sold with bits of tomato, garlic, and mozzarella, and not the appetizing, steaming treat we see it as today. As tomato cultivation grew in acceptance and quantity, more of society was able to access fruits and vegetables, and Italian exports of their crops expanded and opened into the world market, hence how I am able to purchase San Marzano in California, without giving it too much thought.

As Castelevetro reflects in “Spring,” many of Italian consumption crops have been introduced by others and adopted into Italian culture and identity. The tomato left America, came to Italy, was scorned, feared, adopted, adored, and now, as I visit Firenze in 2015, I find myself eating tomato at the very least daily.