Our Annual Tomato Preserves

Precise Heat Surgical Stainless Steel Stock Pot 42 Quart with Steamer
Limited Lifetime warranty


My mom, who is Hungarian and her 3 female neighbors; one Greek and two Italian ladies would arrange a day every year in the fall to make tomato preserves. One neighbor would buy bushels of Romano tomatoes. They would each provide their own stock pots and mason jars; one person would wash tomatoes in the laundry tub, others would trim and blanch the tomatoes in the stock pots.

This assembly line would go on for most of the day--sometimes past midnight. As the day progressed the preserves would begin to take shape. After blanching I would scoop out tomatoes pouring cold water over each batch until cool enough to handle. The ladies and I would remove the peels, placing the tomatoes in stock pots on our basement gas stove bringing the tomatoes to a gentle boil and stirring until softened. Depending on preference, we would process the softened tomatoes through a large food mill. During this time mom would share memories with the neighbors about the old days and how they prepared each family's favorite preserves.

After the tomatoes cooked in batches we would place the tomatoes in the dishwasher-cleaned jars with a sprig of basil and a tbsp of lemon juice; leaving about 1/2 inch head space screwing the lids on. Placing the jars in the rack with the stock pots and water to boil on large gas element in the open garage for about 4 hours. After about 4 hours we would turn off the heat and dad would remove the pot from element and wrap an old blanket around the stock pots overnight.

The following day we checked the jars out to make sure they were vacuum sealed if not, those were the jars we would use first. We would split the preserves up among the families. Often the Italian neighbors would only have a few jars left from the previous year. As I close this post---the memories are flooding back--a vision in our basement "cold room" our shelves full of wonderful jars of tomatoes--what a beautiful sight!--remembering that annual tradition! Ohhh! the fragrance reminded me of an Italian Trattoria! Arrivaderci!

Mason Jars - In 1858 John Landis Mason worked with glass-blowers to develop threaded clear jars for preserves. Over 100 billion Mason Jars have since been sold worldwide.
Click on photo to purchase product. Click here to check out more Great Deals! on the site. www.jjhouseholdemporium.com
Your friendly neighborhood Cook - Julia