Dried Tomatoes

In the south, tomatoes are split in half, sprinkled with sea salt, placed on woven reed mats, then laid on roofs of houses and dried in the intense heat of the sun over the space of a week or two. Then they are put into widemouthed clay containers and immersed in extra-virgin olive oil, perhaps flavored with a little garlic and oregano. In the north, where the sun is not as strong, women dry tomatoes in the oven after the bread has been cooked and the heat has dropped to a very low temperature, leaving them to wrinkle and concentrate their flavors very slowly, 6 to 8 hours.