Tomato Day

My father paces, phone held up to his ear by his shoulder as he crosses off yet another produce truck on his list. My nonna is on the phone, desperately brainstorming options. My father shakes his head, finally saying, “Maybe I should just call some farms in Maryland.”

I never feel more out of place living in New York City than in the third week of August when the conversation turns to bushels and species of tomatoes. As Bensonhurst has seen new groups of immigrants move into the area, Italian American culture may be less visible on a whole, but certainly not in the homes of the Italian immigrants who remain. Well, at least, not in ours. My grandparents, or “i miei nonni” in Italian, emigrated from a small town near Naples in the 1960s and brought a world of traditions with them.

So, we make tomato sauce. This year we made fifteen cases/sixteen and two-thirds bushels/eight hundred and seventy pounds of tomatoes. Whatever way you slice it, there was a lot of slicing involved.

 

We wash each individual tomato to be sure any remnants of farmland won’t wind up in our pasta. We cut each tomato in fourths to remove any yellow sections on the inside or any ugly bits on the outside. Then, we boil, salt, pass, boil, jar and repeat. It’s an art.

 

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But it is a dying art. The truth is, Italian culture has moved on without us. Of the few Italian immigrant families that are left in Bensonhurst, very few choose to participate in this tradition. Even our Italian family that still lives in Naples has retired the custom because it’s too much work, or too much money, or they simply don’t have the space for it anymore. When my siblings and I were younger, we used to dread making sauce because of the long hours, heat, and physical labor. For a long time, we used to try to convince the adults of the family it just wasn’t worth it, citing our neighbors and distant relatives. Now, though, we look forward to a day filled with family and fun, even if it does end with blisters and back pain.

And it’s worth it. Each time we come together as a family to eat, we celebrate our shared sauce-making skills and, through it, our cultural heritage.

Margaret Iuni