Pizza Today - July 2020 - 37

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ummer is time for tomatoes. This umami-packed
fruit can also be savory,
sweet, acidic, sloppy,
crunchy, spicy and nuanced
all at the same time. In
all pizzerias, tomatoes are in top three
all-time ingredients of usage as they
are paired with cheese and wheat. But,
as you browse most corporate pizzeria
menus, not much else is done with
this flexible fruit. In fact, it has always
amazed me that in the heated days of a
tomato summer, most corporate pizzerias and fast food joints will STILL top
your pizza or sandwich with a tasteless,
crappy tomato. This laziness can be
used to your advantage. You are local.
Why not buy and use the best local
ingredients from local people? It works
for flavor, marketing, word-of-mouth,
good will and bottom-line sales.
Pulp Friction
Buying tomatoes from your local
growers is all about the strategy of
supply and demand. During the early
part of the summer, tomatoes go for an
elevated price, then during the "glut"
of summer when every farmer has
more tomatoes than they can sell, the
price goes very low and you can benefit
with little effort. Please note that your
relationship with local farmers extends
to their family and friends who will, in
turn, become your best customers. Here
are some tips for getting the best value
with tomatoes:
* Your farmers. This market is just
like the pizza market. If you show some
loyalty to a tomato farmer, you'll get
the best tomatoes cheaper and earlier
in the summer. Many farmers now have
high tunnels. These are unheated and
sometimes temporary greenhouses used
in the springtime to get a jump on the
tomato growing season.
* Farmers markets. Just by telling a
tomato vender that you could come
back every week to purchase tomatoes
offers a window into getting a steady
stream of value along with tomatoes.
You can also just tell the farmer to

drop off a case or two at your store if they
cannot sell them that day. You will be
surprised to have a new perfect tomato
purveyor who will possibly offer you some
discounted peppers, onion and zucchini,
etc. because they don't want to go home
with produce.
* "Got any seconds". This magic phrase
refers to the ugly tomatoes that every
farmer finds hard to sell to farmers market
customers. They may have pits, bug bites,
mushed parts or just be plain ugly. The
best thing about these lowly orphans is
that they taste the same or even better as
the tomato runway models.
* Bush-trimmed tomatoes. To get a better yield, many tomato growers pull some
fruit early to increase the energy to other,
larger fruit on the plant. These tomatoes
are sometimes pulled when green or partly
ripe. These are particularly cheap and will
ripen in a box at your restaurant temperature and are still remarkably tasty when
they ripen.

Biggie Smalls: Cherry Tomato Do's
and Don'ts
Don't buy hundreds of heirloom cherry
tomatoes with "Spiders." Spiders are the
small stem leaves that stick onto some
varieties of heirloom tomatoes. Farmers sometimes rip tomatoes off the bush
which does not dislodge this spider-looking leaf on the tomato. Believe me, it is a
real pain to get these off especially when
they dry out.
Do save a few plastic ricotta or sauce
tub lids that are five to six inches in diameter to cut cherry tomatoes. These lids act
as a great capture basin cherry tomatoes
and you will be able to halve boatloads of
cherry tomatoes of all different sizes in
no time. 1. Place the bottom lid on a table
and put as many cherries into it. 2. Place
the top lid on the tomatoes leaving a small
slit in between the lids. 3. Using a very
sharp knife, slice through the tomatoes
and place into a bowl.

J U LY 2 0 2 0 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / 3 7

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6/9/20 10:07 AM
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Pizza Today - July 2020

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