San Marzano, Where They Are Grown

[karstopography]

Came away from watching this video with a lot of respect for these tomatoes and the all people cultivating and handling them.

Super surprised about the growing conditions, climate and other factors, especially that the water table is right below the surface. That shattered my expectations of the conditions where these tomatoes are grown.

I did notice that the tomatoes themselves were very moist. When I grew San marzano, my tomatoes were much drier inside.

[worth1]

For those not caught up on the metric system 100 degrees Celsius is the boiling point of water.
That's the temperature they are processing the tomatoes for about an hour in the can.
0 degrees Celsius is the freezing point of water.
A rather simple way of measuring temperature if you ask me.
From what I could read in the video there is nothing but a little salt added to the mix.
No extra crap to ruin the taste of the tomatoes.
My can of Cento tomato puree ingredients says tomato puree and nothing else.
And the reason I use it almost exclusively to make my pasta sauce.
It really makes a difference and well worth the price difference from cheaper brands.
In contrast the HEB brand tomato sauce has all manner of stuff in it and a product of mass processing from a paste and back into a sauce.

This is the type of quality that can really put a good restaurant out in front compared to cheaper restaurants where the bottom dollar counts more than quality.

So yes you can get good canned tomato products from the store if you're willing to pay a little bit more.
And it's worth it.
Growing up we used this type of tomato to do a lot of our preserving for the winter and the plants were watered from our spring fed fish pond.
The only thing added to the product was a little salt nothing else.
This adding tons more acid is ridiculous in most cases.

[worth1]

Oh and the Europeans especially the Italians are really strict when it comes to names and regional production of anything.
Even though it's the exact same seed grown there it can't be called a San Marzano unless it's grown in that region.
I grew them one year here and they did better than any other paste I grew.
Not one bit of BER and they were really tasty.