Il Rito di fine Estate, Piccire’ amma fa e butteglie!!!!
Toward the end of summer Italians search high and low to find vine ripened tomatoes for the annual family congregation in the making of the SALSA, which is then distributed amongst family members. You normally buy or go tomato picking yourself and if you do end up going tomato picking, you go home after spending a day in a glass house looking like a cactus, your skin is all prickly and covered in tomato pest-dust, you smell rotten from the intense heat, you are so dehydrated it takes days to recover and last but not least you are so itchy it drives you crazy.
Once you return home from picking, all the tomatoes are placed on plastic sheets overnight, it is the following day that the hard but rewarding work starts. The whole family gathers with one purpose in mind, the final product and the fun we are going to have whilst washing the tomatoes two or three time in cold water, cleaning the beer bottles with a bottle brush, picking of the basil leaves, helping mum with the blanching of the tomatoes, crushing the tomatoes with the elbow grease powered crusher that sprays you as it squashes the red vine ripened gift from the land.
And last but not least the filling of the bottles with a basil leaf and the tomato PASSATA. Then it is up to dad to cap the bottles, place them in the 44 gallon drum with the help of the kids. Fill the drum with water, start the fire underneath the recipient. Extinguish the flame once the water has boiled and take the bottles out and store them.
