Whole Hand Peeled Tomatoes from Masseria Mirogallo

This is (roughly) my 20th year traveling around finding food for a living. And ever since my first tour of Italy, I’ve loved but have never truly figured out the best way to use and sell whole tomatoes in a jar. It’s a simple product: beautifully red, sweet, delicious. But what would I use it for? Can’t I get fresh tomatoes from the farmer’s market? And so—unable to make a decision one way or the other—I punted. I knew they had a role to play in our pantries, I’m just embarrassed it’s taken me so long to figure it out.

It all finally clicked for me on a recent trip. I get tomatoes in a jar now and I think you’ll love ’em, too. I learned a quick and easy recipe for them from my host and guide and friend Rolando Beramendi, who got the recipe from the matriarch of the Belfiore family. (The recipe also appears in Rolando’s cookbook, Autentico, which is a must have if you love ingredient focused cookbooks that help you produce traditional Italian recipes.) She made it for lunch for us the day we visited and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It’s fresh, it’s flavorful, and it’s really easy to make for a lunch, or as an appetizer before a meal, ideally with a glass of good wine.

Spaccatelle di Pomodori – Broken Tomato Halves

Ingredients:
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 jar whole hand-peeled tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp salted capers, rinsed and drained
sea salt to taste
crusty bread, semolina if possible

Put the thinly sliced garlic in a shallow but somewhat wide bowl. Top with the tomatoes and drizzle with the olive oil. Season with salt and sprinkle the capers over the top. Serve immediately with fresh, crusty bread and let people scoop/sop it up. This is a dish that’s meant to be eaten by using your fingers so don’t by shy. Sop it up, take a bite, close your eyes and think of summer.