On Disappointing Tomatoes + Sunday Sauce
Making the best of an okay tomato by making the best pasta sauce.
I’ve been reading a lot of E.B. White essays lately. This is probably unsurprising to those who I’ve told my favorite book is The Elements of Style1, but perhaps not a particularly common statement2. Right now I’m working my way through On Dogs, a collection of essays written on, well, dogs. He writes on other things, too, of course — chief among them, life on his Maine salt farm3.
One line, from a letter to James Thurber, hits close to home:
On the whole, we are getting along here pretty well and liking it. There is something in me that keeps making me want to do the things I am not very good at, and of course the country is the ideal place for that4.
This sentiment feels awfully familiar as it relates to our garden. Beyond dealing with vine borers, fruitworms, and caterpillars of all types5, there’s always some unforced error reminding me why they call it gardening and not harvesting6. This year, on the whole, we’re getting along pretty well, but did have some tomato issues.
As I’ve espoused often, here in this newsletter, across the internet, in casual conversation, and by shouting into the void, that there is no better meal than a freshly picked tomato, eaten directly off the vine7. I will stand behind that statement until the end of time. I believe it so strongly, Mrs. CWD and I based much of our garden planting strategy around having a steady supply of tomatoes throughout the summer. As we perused seed catalogues last fall, we picked out several varietals of tomatoes8. Somehow, though, we managed to forget to get any cherry tomatoes. The CWD Ranch is the ideal place for doing things I am not very good at.
I love cherry tomatoes, eating them like grapes while harvesting them, the pop of flavor, the sweetness, the simplicity. But Kiddo CWD loves them even more. We’re fortunate that our CSA has a U-Pick selection each week — for the bulk of the summer, cherry tomatoes are ripe for the taking9. Not wanting to have to rely solely on the providence of our farms trips to enjoy these petite treats, we figured we’d just buy a seedling cherry tomato plant — and we did. We put it in the garden and watched it grow.
Much to our chagrin, when the vine started producing fruit, they were not cherry tomatoes — not Sungolds nor Black Pearls, not Tiny Tims nor Mirabelle Blanches — but instead, San Marzano tomatoes.
For those unaware, San Marzano tomatoes are most famous for being terrific canning tomatoes. In fact, if you’re going for the highest quality ingredients you can find, I’d recommend buying San Marzanos. But, unfortunately, these guys are not the best eating tomatoes. They’re just a little bland for my liking, very fleshy, not quite big enough, but not quite small enough. It’s just an okay tomato.
We obviously ended up with a decent crop of them.
Having collected enough of these to warrant needing to do something with them, and the weather not feeling too oppressive for pasta, Mrs. CWD and I decided to make a red sauce this week. Now I’ve written about this before10 , but not this year. So here we are again, making pasta sauce. This recipe is equally inspired by Frankie Spuntino’s “Sunday Sauce11” recipe and the way my mom would make pasta sauce growing up.
Enjoy — and remind me next year to double check I’m getting Powerpops.
Around lunch time, if you remember, add a heavy slug of olive oil to a decently sized pot. Turn the heat to quite low and let the oil heat up while you smash and peel several cloves of garlic. Add those to the pot, and while the garlic is heating, but not browning, dice an onion. Add that to the pot — maybe turning up the heat a little — while you halve as many ripe tomatoes as you have on hand. Add those, too, to the pot. Bring this to a boil and then cut to a simmer. Salt as you go, of course. You can even add in some red pepper flakes. Stir not infrequently.
Once the tomatoes start to break down, about 10 minutes, you can either call it a day and serve, or, if you’ve got the time12, pour in a splash of balsamic vinegar, a glug of red wine, and one or two additional cans of diced or crushed tomatoes13. Bring this back to a boil, then cut to a simmer. Now would be a great time to add a couple sausages14 and Parmigianno cheese rinds. Let this whole mess sit for at least three or four more hours until well melded15.
When you’re ready for dinner, cut the heat, fish out the parm rinds, and serve over al dente pasta and with plenty of grated cheese.
So there you have it — Sunday sauce. I realize that a purist might have qualms with this preparation. Needs to have more meat. You aren’t supposed to use onions. You need to peel the tomatoes before adding them. You’ve got to finish the pasta in the sauce, not just dump it on top. Et cetera, et cetera.
To this complaints, I say — whatever. Food is meant to be eaten how you enjoy it. We only had sausages on hand16; I like onions; peeling San Marzano tomatoes is a pain in the butt; my mom never finished pasta in red sauce, so I don’t either. You should generally be flexible17 in how you eat, in how you cook18. Make your Sunday sauce however you like it19.
I’ll leave you with that. Those hints of fall I alluded to last week are creeping in more and more with each passing day. Take advantage of the sun, the warmth we have left. Sleep outside, maybe; dine al fresco; cook en plein aire20. Before you know it, the leaves will be turning, falling, crunching, and it will be dark before you even realize it was light.
This is said only partially facetiously — I do love the Elements of Style. But if you know Doggie CWD’s name, and Kiddo’s middle name, you’ll know that To Kill a Mockingbird likely takes the top spot.
Though it should certainly be more common, in my opinion.
White, and his wife, Katherine, bought a farm in Brooklin, ME, in 1933 and moved there full-time a few years later. This is the farm which inspired Charlotte’s Web and countless essays and letters. It’s a dream of mine to do the same — as Mrs. CWD already knows.
He goes on:
I have made things about as hard for myself as anyone conceivably could, what with installing a coal furnace that has to be handfired (by me), and acquiring a lot of miscellaneous live animals what have to be fed, watered, nursed, wormed, bedded, scolded, and worried about. This place teems with trouble, of one sort and another. I am up every morning at twenty past six, trouble shooting.
Sounds about right.
That’s what I get, I suppose, for supporting the bees and butterflies.
This is a play on the old fisherman’s absolution: “That’s why they call it fishing, not catching.”
The German Black being a favorite
You should see her going down the rows of plants, eating and eating and eating and eating tomatoes.
And, as some of you know, Red Sauce Only, was the originally intended name for this newsletter.
Sunday sauce being so named since in many Italian households, you make pasta on Sunday, using the leftover meat from Saturday to braise in the sauce. It’s something we should all be doing more of.
And I really, really, encourage you to make the time.
San Marzano, of course.
We mixed several varieties of Italian.
Or, as pre-CWD, Mrs. CWD would say, “let it fester.”
Though I’ve often made this with leftover steak, roasts, pork chops, pulled pork — maybe not every permutation Nana CWD has used, but maybe close!
This goes for many things in life.
You can even make it on a Tuesday, like I did when prepping this newsletter.
I realize, taken as a whole, this sounds like a recommendation to go camping, and I suppose, really, it is.
I grew up watching my dad make Sunday sauce every couple of months. He learned from his mom who learned from relatives maybe not originally from this country. I don't have a recipe per se but feel this is as close to soul food as I'll ever make, ingredient by ingredient, anticipating long hours on the stove. And I look forward to passing it along to the next generation!
Just Yum. Nothing better, and nothing better to accompany a hunky loaf of bread--just dipping bread in the sauce...although Gigi only called it Gravy.
I love you!