Recipes

Yes, there really is a World Tomato Week, and it was celebrated at Expo 2015 from June 14-21 – in Italy, appropriately, the world’s third largest tomato producer. The tomato is the quintessential summer food. Its reassuring, refreshing presence accompanies practically every summer dish, and not just in Italy: garden salads, pasta and rice salads, insalata caprese, Greek salad, sandwiches, burgers, soups like gazpacho in Spain or Manhattan-style clam chowder in the States, tomato mousse, even tomato ice cream. And let’s not forget that summer brunch classic, the Bloody Mary – which, if you’ve never had one made from fresh tomatoes (peeled and seeded, of course) instead of processed tomato juice, you really need to try! Whether fresh, sundried or pureed, the tomato is as versatile as it is indispensable. Aptly called pomodoro in Italian (meaning ‘golden apple’), it is a concentration of dietary virtues: water, protein, organic acids, antioxidants, vitamins A and C, and practically no sugars (1%). It is the undeniable king of the Mediterranean diet. And thanks to its more than 1,000 varieties, people around the world can enjoy it throughout the year. Though let’s be honest, it’s always at its best in the summer. The list of tomato varieties can be broadly divided into salad tomatoes and sauce tomatoes, depending on factors like juiciness, pulpiness, skin thickness and flavor – which is more variable than you may think, in that some tomatoes taste better cooked than raw, while others should only be eaten fresh. The names are seductive in and of themselves:  Perino, Pero d’Abruzzo, Regina, Costoluto Fiorentino, Pizzutello….. There’s the Camone, whose green ‘collar’...