Working with Tomatoes

Which Tomato? Our choice of tomato depends on how we are going to use it and, in Italy, that can depend on regional preferences. When making salads, for example, the south of Italy favors tomatoes that are ripened to a deep red and whose flesh is tender and sweet. Northerners are more likely to select underripe tomatoes that are more pink than red and even partly green, prizing them for their firmness and sprightly, refreshing tartness. Some of the most sought-after salad varieties are the small round ones grown in Pachino, Sicily, and in S. Margherita di Pula in Sardinia. The even smaller cigliegini, cherry tomatoes, particularly the kind known as Naomi, have surged in quality and popularity in recent years. Originally from Sicily, they are now grown in every region, as are the large, round, creased-on-top garden variety that are the staple of tomato salads everywhere. Wherever one’s personal preference in tomatoes may fall—and when more than one variety is available one may use several in a salad—a tomato that you eat raw should be chosen with the same criteria you apply to fruit. The pulp should be luscious, not woolly, and flavorful juice must spring from it at every bite. Yet it ought never to be decadently soft and overripe.